How to get there:
The logistics is a bit complicated. There is a single flight per day from Kupang (KOE) on
West Timor. This flight (2025) leaves at 0830. Since most flights into Kupang arrive later
in the day, one typically must have an overnight stay in Kupang. This, however, may not be
a bad idea, there is an excellent hotel very near the airport, La Hasienda (Whatsapp: +62 812-3841-7459).
I will strongly recommend this, super airport pickup service, a very charming building, a nice rooftop
bar/restaurant with a good selection of European and Indonesian menus, even Mexican! They have a good
selection of cold beer and other drinks as well.
The flight to Alor island takes about one hour.
From the airport, there is approximately 2.5 hours to drive to the base of the peak, near the
trailhead.
Route description:
After initially crossing some land with at least scattered farm activity, the trail turns
north and ascends a wide gully. On the top of this gully, the route ascends onto a ridge that
turns (hikers) right. This is
quite a fun ridge to follow including a few smaller
descents along the way. This ridge ends with a small descent connecting to the main hill
rising steeply. The trail attacks this hill more or less directly uphill. An easier
route would have made the trail do some larger (ascending) zig-zags here. About
half way up there are signs, however unclear for what purpose. Go (initially) slightly
right then continue along the ridge extending more or less directly uphill to reach the main
crest.
More signs here,
a trail forks left to the much smaller subsidiary summit point a short
distance away (prominence less than 100m). Follow the ridge that runs right. The best route
is to stay on the highest ridge near the big drop you will have (hikers) on the right.
Soon the summit area comes into view.
It is a bit brushy and there are only segments
of trails visible. Ascend to the more narrow summit ridge and follow¨
this (slight exposure near the end) to locate a tiny summit with what looks like a
pretty new summit marker.
A track is posted on Peakbagger. Note that this track starts in the village where I
spent the night before the climb. It may be slightly shorter to start from the end of one of the
smaller roads that touches the route near the beginning.
Comments:
I needed to travel here from Bima, not entirely trivial as my only option seemed to
be taking a flight east to Lombok, then a second flight to Surabaya on Java. Finally,
a direct flight from there to Kupang, flying directly above my starting point Bima before
getting to Kupang.
A friendly driver was waiting just outside the airport entrance and 5 minutes later I was
checked in at La Hasienda, what a charming place! This hotel has character unlike many.
Shortly after arrival I was enjoying a cold German Weissbeer on the roof terrasse.
I had contacted Pak Mat Bela Tour (Whatsapp: +62 812-4657-2502) to organize my visit. The aim
being fairly efficient. I would arrive on Monday morning, drive directly to the trailhead village
and stay there. Then climb the peak on Tuesday morning, with a return to near the airport, staying
in hotel Simfony. Finally, on Wednesday, return to my very nice hotel, La Hasienda in Kupang.
My flight went on time and my party was waiting. Then we tried to hunt Coke Zero. I quickly decided
that this was hopeless, but my host insisted to look more. The first 4-5 stores did not even have
sugar coke. Finally, a store did have sugar coke, I bought some and said we should now leave for
the mountain. But no, purchase of some dinner was needed, (why that was not done in one of the
previous 5 stores is very unclear.) This place is 35 C, sort of hot. I was looking forward to get going. This running around had already taken about one hour.
We drove along the coast, nice palm trees and sandy beaches. The road looked pretty new, nice two-lane
paved road. Eventually turning uphill and quickly gaining 700 vertical meter. The temperature up here
still warm, but certainly less hot than down at sea level.
Stop for lunch, they wanted to contribute to the
garbage, but I told them that we needed to bring our garbage back home. It is hard to see how
Indonesians shall change this habit of just
throwing trash everywhere.
Soon, around 1300, we arrived at the house of the local contact.
He lives at location S8.24652, E124.98515, elevation
near 760 meter.
We strolled down the road to a new church that was almost completed. This village is Christian
so no minaret wake up tomorrow. All that remained was to build a
big cross on top of the church.
To this end, they had constructed a rather
impressive bamboo staircase. I climbed it and said hello
to the workers on top, it seemed that this was a popular thing.
A very nice view of town and tomorrow's mountain from the top.
Later dinner, then the adults sat
around and carried out what appeared to be a social, meaningful conversation.
It struck me how people in the west most likely would have been busy with their
respective mobile phones. We agreed to have a small breakfast tomorrow at 0445, then leave at 0500.
We started walking at 0450, daylight was already well on its way. I had company with father (age 63) and
his son (mid twenties). Senior carried a bow and 4-5 long,
sharp arrows. We made good progress,
however it became clear that our rate of ascent was too fast for "Papa". Thus, we made 2-3 stops in order for
him to catch up. After a break at the main crest (It had taken us about 2:20 to get here.), we continued
traversing the ridge going towards the island highpoint. Soon, it was within sight, the last little
ascent a bit of a bushwack. We entered a short, somewhat exposed summit ridge leading to the official high point.
The climb had taken about 3:20 including several stops.
We descended back to the maiin ridge and joined Papa,
a sit down rest and some food was
immediately decided. I practiced a little
using Papa's bow. Later we continued our descent, loose gravel
on top of the steepish trail made it easy to slide.
Return to the family house
at 1045, so slightly less than a 6 hour round trip time.
We drove back to town after a brief lunch.
I stayed in Simfony hotel, OK, but with
terrible WIFI. The next morning, I flew back to Kupand for a second stay in the
nice hotel La Hasianda.
