Rinjani Trekking

For my first trekking trip ever, I coincidently went on one of the hardest treks in all of Southeast Asia...

We arrived in Lombok late at night and left early morning at 4:00am to meet with our guide and 2 porters in the Senaru village. The trek started slowly up through some banana groves, but after about 1 hour we reached the forest gate, and this is where things got crazy...

From the forest gate to position 1 is 1.3km and very steep. After reaching position 1 and taking a short 10 min break, we continued up to position extra about 1km and it started raining very hard. The trail became a small creek, and very hard to navigate. From this point on, the trail mainly consisted of large stairs made from the roots of the trees.

From position extra to position 2 was another 1.3km, and it got steeper at this stage. It took nearly 2 hours to reach position 2, and my legs started to cramp up quite badly. After reaching position 2, we had lunch with about 20 other trekkers and only 1 other girl...

We then continued another 2 hours to position 3 where the porters setup the camp for the evening. My tent was setup directly in front of Jesse's tent, and he was snoring loudly (LOL) when I woke up at 3:00am to start the final 2 hours up to the crater rim. This last stretch was the most challenging, and I had tears in my eyes, and ready to give up. My guide was very patient and very encouraging. Without his help, I would have never made it up to the top....

When we reached the rim, it was a little discouraging that we couldn't even see the lake due to the cloud cover. We decided to hang out for an hour or so, and even though the mountain never appeared, we were still able to make some nice images of the lake and the new smaller volcano that has formed...

Although it was the most challenging thing I have ever done, it was really a great experience... Even though the mountain never emerged from the clouds, this image has a lot of special meaning for me, as it's by far the hardest I have ever worked for a photo... Next year, I hope to go to the summit!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rinjani

Mount Rinjani or Gunung Rinjani is an active volcano in Indonesia on the island of Lombok, Administratively the mountain is in the Regency of North Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (Indonesian: Nusa Tenggara Barat, NTB). It rises to 3,726 metres (12,224 ft), making it the second highest volcano in Indonesia, and similar in height to Mount Fuji, the third highest mountain of the Indonesian archipelago and the thirty ninth most prominent peak in the world[2][3][4].
The 6 km by 8.5 km oval-shaped caldera is filled partially by the crater lake known as Segara Anak (Child of the Sea) This lake is approximately 2000 metres above sea level and estimated at being around 200 metres deep;[5] the caldera also contains hot springs.

Exposure1.6
Aperturef/14.0
Focal Length16 mm
ISO Speed50
Singh ray 3 stops Rev
Hoya HD Polarizer

To Jesse Estes Thank You,it was great trekking,lol:)
To Mark Thank You for all the support :)