Climb On

Yes, I'm climbing again.


This was taken a couple of weeks ago at a spot near Bandung, about a three hour drive from the capital. The rock is a cool mix of limestone and marble. You can see on the right a cave feature which, if I'm not mistaken, was transformed into marble by intense pressure. It's really great rock to climb - I've never felt anything like it - but it's a bit slippery and tiring for the hands if you have to pinch. This route is called "Ani", and it's rated as a "5.10c". That's hard. None of us got to the top of the route, but we had a blast trying.


There's sort of a loose but growing group of foreign and Indonesian climbers in Jakarta, led by our guru Panji, pictured below on the far right.




From left to right: Troy, Chad, John (back), Christian (back), Dave, Panji. Taking the picture is Boi, who is the best climber of the group after Panji. Panji, by the way, is a professional climber and has competed in the X-games. He's really a rock celebrity and we all owe him a lot for giving us his time and expert coaching.

Here’s a good shot of the valley and John taking a big swing over it. I met John before coming to Indonesia because of a question we posted on the expat forum about climbing in Jakarta. It took us just about a year to actually start climbing, but in the meantime he’s become one of our best friends here. You can see that the marble in this area has attracted some industry. The factory below makes marble tiles, and you can see some excavation in the distance where a "v" notch has been cut into the mountain.

If you get a chance, you should also check out Mr. John's blog, linked on the right of this page.