Our oldest son went to Indonesia for his High Adventure this summer and we just got the photos for it. I was very impressed with his description of the photos and he agreed to write this blog entry about it!…
Day 1
After about 2 weeks of summer vacation, the young men went on their high adventure for a week. In Indonesia. Climbing an active volcano. Wow. So they went to the airport and flew for 4 hours to Bali, Indonesia’s capital city. But their second flight out to the island that Mt.Rinjani is on was delayed for 2 hours. After the short 45min. flight out, they took a bus to the base camp at the bottom of the volcano. About 11:00 P.M. Go to sleep.
Day 2
Wake up in the mornin’ feelin’ tired and hungry. Eat breakfast, (fried banana pancakes!) and take the van to the trailhead.
View from base camp in the morning.
Starting Hike!
Hike through the tropical forest (super cool), with lots of neat animals and plants.
A wild monkey.
Stop for lunch and get the coolest hiking sticks from our guide! (most important equipment on the hike besides shoes) Hike for another hour and then break the tree line and start hiking IN the clouds.
Crazy “Porters” that carried the tents and food up and down. They take a thick bamboo stick, lash the supplies to it, and then carry it on their shoulders….and no shoes. Wow.
Finally reach the rim of the volcano. Set up camp and enjoy the AMAZING VIEWS!
Looking into the rim
Our campsite right next to a 400 foot drop! 
Finally made it!
Our group
Eat dinner and go to sleep. Exhausted.
Day 3
Waking up early to see the beautiful sunrise.
Pack up and head into the rim of the volcano, very treacherous and scary, miss a step and you die. Reach the bottom of the crater and go relax in the hot springs (woot woot!)
View from the bottom (cinder cone on the right, actual volcano part)
Waterfall by the hot springs. Alternating between super hot and freezing water.
Pack up again and hike up the other side of the volcano, side where the summit is on.
Our other campsite…look at the slope of this spot!
Had some great devotionals, watched the sunset, went to bed to get ready for hiking the summit the next day!
Day 4
Wake up at 3 in the morning to get ready to hike the summit! Really cold, slippery, and dark out. Slippery in the sense that you take 3 steps up, but then you slide 2 steps down on a mini rock avalanche. And the summit looks close, but you never seem to be getting anywhere. As we were on the final stretch of rock, the sun just barely started to come up which made it worth it because almost all of us wanted to just stop and watch the sun from where we where but it was way more beautiful at the top. (life lesson!) We stayed at the top for half hour-ish and then started our way back down to our campsite.
Super steep and slippery final stretch.
The very top! (12,250 ft.)
The entire route along the ridge
We “skied” down the final stretch, going really fast. (random people in background are us)
Amazing colors of the rocks.
“Skied” down to the campsite, packed up, and hiked back down to base camp, where we then took a van to the nearest BURGER KING which is the best food known to mankind after you’ve been on the most physically exerting thing you and everyone else in your group have ever done in their lives. 
Slept at a nearby bungalow. Yeah!
Day 5
Woken up at 6 in the morning by the mosque’s insanely loud prayers RIGHT next door. Ouch. Get packed and head out to the airport for the boring 4 hour flight back. Arrive back in Bangkok! Head home. Mission Accomplished. 
Very exciting! Fantastic pictures!
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