Travelling to Welirang Mount

Author : Akhmad Nasruddin (12320033)

“One great journey begin with a simple step”. As Lao-Tse said, I implement that quotation in every adventure activity whom I do. It is very helpful to motivate myself especially whenever I feel tired. I remembered the last place I visited, that is Welirang mount. It was a high and quiet mountain, but it was very beautiful. Travelling to Welirang mount gave me really amazing adventure experiences.

I was invited to join the journey to Welirang mount by my friend. I was not alone, my hiking team consisted of 7 men including me. Before starting the journey on the next day, we discussed about all equipment such as tent, sleeping bag, headlamp, etc. that we wanted to bring. In the middle of the discussion, suddenly one of my friends got an information from the weather forecast that the next day would be rainy hard. In our mind, we feel afraid that hard rain would come.

The D-day came, I went to the place that we chose together directly, and that place was a gold dome mosque in Cangar, Batu. While I stopped to fill gasoline, a hard rain fell. At that time, I got puzzle in my mind. Yet, deep inside my heart I believe that the rain would not be long, so I wore my raincoat and began riding my motorcycle. I arrived at the place at 01.00 pm and all of the crew had already in there. Then, we placed our motorcycle on the parking area.

Our target that day called “twin valley”. I did not know exactly why the name was it, but it could be because it is located in the middle of Welirang and Arjuno mounts. From the place we started, it took 6 until 7 hours to reach out that place. Meanwhile, while we continued to walk, a hard rain changed into drizzle. We felt happy and did not forget to thank Allah by saying “Alhamdulillah”. Even though the intensity of the rain decreased, the field we went across was still moist. Sometimes it made one of our crews fall down, because the track was slick. We realized that we had to be careful on our steps.

After 4 hours walking, then the rain. The time showed 05.30 pm, we decided to stop. We wanted to wait the most valuable thing when a hiker does travelling, namely sunset. For 10 minutes we waited, it came. It was very beautiful when the sky turned yellow and your position were higher than the cloud. All I could say was “Subhanallah”, How beautiful You creates the world.

The sky started to turn black because the sun had already left. We used our headlamp as our light source. We began our steps in the darkness jungle. At that time there was almost no long conversation between us. I knew it because talking too much would waste our energy. Our energy was precious thing that we had to keep it. Everyone sank on their tiredness and on their stomach necessity. As planned before, we would had dinner when we arrived at the twin valley.

Our steps frozen, not only because of our condition but also because of the nature. Although we wore warm set, the cold felt piercing our bones. It impacted on the way we took a breath. Suddenly one of my friend screamed “we almost arrived!” That words made our spirit rose again, we speeded our step. We ran even though we felt hungry, we did not care about it. While I watched around, someone screamed loudly “Touch Down!” I walked in the back, I ran to the front and I smiled. We arrived at twin valley at 08.00 pm o’clock. I dropped my bag and brought down my body in grass with my eyes seeing the sky. It was beautiful night with a lot of star in the sky and also a beautiful moon.

        Three of my friends and I built up the tent, when two others cooked. We brought two tents that normally can be used for ten persons. It took only fifteen minutes to build it. After we finished building up the tent, we helped our friends to cook rice. We brought many logistics such rice, noodle instant, tofu, chicken meat, etc. I thought that it was the most luxurious food I ever brought when I hiked a mountain.

            After eating dinner, we began to sleep. I prepared a sleeping bag and a friend also did the same. Actually, there were only two persons in my tent, others slept in the other tent. The wide space in our tent made me felt cold. I tried to make up myself in comfortable condition for sleeping but I failed. Furthermore, I only slept for an hour and I thought that it was the coldest night I ever had.

            I woke up then I purified myself with dust to worship to Allah. After that, I walked out from tent and watched the dark sky. I could not watch sunrise because my position is behind Arjuno’s summit, but that was not a big problem because I did not feel the cold anymore. I sat at a big stone, tried to get the warmness of the sun.

            After all members were ready, we continued our journey to the main target, the summit. From our position it took only an hour until we stand there. While we continued walking, sometimes we also took a picture because it was really nice panorama. We still walked until we finally saw the summit. It gave an impact in our mind, watching the summit made our steps faster.  And finally, we arrived at the Welirang’s summit. I placed my head on the sand and kissed the Indonesia’s flag that became a sign of the summit. My happiness felt more complete because at the top of Welirang mount I saw the greatest panorama I ever seen. When the sky was blue and I was at a higher position than the cloud, it just like I seeing a sea of cloud right in front of me.

  

Welirang mount will always become one of the sweetest place that I will always remember. It was a really great journey with really nice friends and also with a great view of the nature. There were so many lessons I got from this journey, however the most important ones are to reach something you have to be ready to struggle as Habib Jamal Ba’aghil said “There is a wisdom in every difficulties”.