Indonesia’s Many Mountains Unveiled
Two English expats have launched a website called Gunung Bagging, featuring a list of all the mountains and volcanoes in Indonesia with 1,000 meters or more of prominence. (Gunung means “mountain” in Indonesia.) The website eventually will include hiking tips, photographs, and route descriptions for all of the peaks, and visitors will be invited to post comments about their own ascents.
Many Westerners, of course, are familiar with 16,024-foot Carstensz Pyramid on Papua, the highest peak in Indonesia and one of the Seven Summits, or 13,455-foot Kinabulu on Borneo. But there are hundreds of other dramatic peaks in the Indonesian archipelago, from well-known day hikes near large cities to remote and rarely climbed summits that might require a week or more of hiking to reach; some peaks on the list are active and dangerous volcanoes.
The website calls these peaks Ribus, after the Indonesian word for “1,000.” The site’s creators decided that 1,000 meters of prominence would encompass the greatest variety of the country’s high peaks, across dozens of islands. Which province has the most “ribus”? East Nusa Tenggara, home of the Komodo dragon.
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