Trekking on Gunung Kerinci Sumatra

Gunung Kerinci in Sumatra Indonesia can be trekked to from the village of Kersik Tua. It is advisable to use a guide as the terrain can be tricky. When I was there a Swiss guy was lost when he went out to climb the mountain in the night without a guide. He was an experienced mountaineer and mountain climber. Gunung Kerinci is still an active volcano. Gunung Kerinci is the most prominent feature in the vicinity of Kerinci Seblat National Park, with pine-forested slopes rising 2,400-3,300 metres above the surrounding basin, and a cone thirteen kilometers wide and twenty five kilometers long at the base, elongated in the north-south direction. At the summit there is a deep six hundred meter wide crater, often partially filled with green-yellow water.

Gunung Kerinci is the highest active volano in Indonesia at 3805 meters. Mount Kerinci last erupted in 1970, and continues to let out clouds of sulphurous smoke, with plumes reaching as high as one thousand meters above the top of the mountain. Several activities can be carried out such as mountaineering, camping, bird watching and photography. Mt Kerinci is located 49 kilometers from SungaiPenuh and can be reached by bus to Kersik Tua and then continued on foot for 10 to 12 hours to the peak. At the mountain foot lies a tea plantation and you can see the workers clipping the tea bushes and throwing the tea onto bullock carts.

At Kersik Tua, just below gunung Kerinci, you can stay at a home stay such as Subandi Homestay for about 20,000 rupiahs per person per night. The rooms are clean and the owner Pak Subandi is friendly and is a registered guide with a wealth of knowledge about the local area and climbing the mountain. You can get to Kersik Tua from padang or Bhukittingi by bus. Make sure you tell the driver to let you off at Kersik Tua otherwise you will go all the way to SungaiPenuh. If you are coming the other way, say from Benkulu, you can stay at Sungaipenuh probably at the Hotel Matahari and catch the bus up the mountains to Kersik Tua. Gunung Kerinci is in the middle of Sumatra, high in the mountains.

Kerinci Resources

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