Why Have a Hall of Fame?

Although looking at lists of mountains like the Ribus is always secondary to the actual experience of being out there in the mountains – enjoying the fresh air, the scenery and the exercise – there is an undoubted pleasure in keeping track of the peaks you’ve visited. Unlike in several other countries where mountain climbing is equally – or more – popular, there has not to our knowledge been any attempt to create a record of people’s hiking achievements in Indonesia. The Ribus are based on objective criteria (i.e 1,000 metre prominence) and so we hope to utilise this to keep a record of people’s hiking achievements – if they want to be included.

Given the immensity of the challenge of climbing all the Ribus (and the fact that nobody knew where they all were until now) it is pretty much impossible that anyone will have climbed all 193 of them! Indeed, we think that at present no single person has reached the top of more than about 50 Ribus, although it is probable that at least 100 peaks on the list are relatively accessible and have been climbed on at least several occasions. Perhaps 50 Ribus or more are visited by hikers on at least a weekly basis during the dry season.

Hall of Fame Criteria

If you have climbed 20 or more Ribus (excluding Spesial peaks) you can join the Gunung Bagging Hall of Fame. If you would like to be added, please contact us with a list of your bagged Ribus and Spesials, and including any “significant attempts” when you came close but failed to reach the absolute summit for some reason.

There can be many reasons for failing to reach the summit:

• Volcanic activity (or the weather) can make it too dangerous to reach the highest point. The trek to Merapi (Central Java) is an example of a relatively straightforward hike to the summit area of a volcano, but not to the summit itself (which was completely altered most recently in the 2006 eruption). Hikers who visited the highest point prior to 2006 (Garuda’s Wing) can reasonably claim to have reached the summit. At present, however, the highest point is part of the new lava dome which is simply too dangerous and utterly irresponsible to visit. It is inevitable that the situation will change again at some point in the future.
• Difficulty of the terrain. Mount Egon (East Nusa Tenggara), Gunung Raung (East Java) and Puncak Trikora (Papua) all require climbing ropes and/or intermediate rock-climbing skills in order to reach the highest point.
• Not knowing where the summit actually is. A less common and more humorous reason for not reaching the highest point will be simply that you didn’t know where the very top was, perhaps due to excessive vegetation or a very flat mountain top with several peaks of seemingly similar elevation. Even a guide might not actually know where the true summit is and they can even get you lost. On a visit to Papandayan (in 2009) we were not sure of the highest point before visiting the mountain and assumed it would be easy to figure it out when we arrived; it was more difficult than we thought and so will be returning for another attempt.

Of course, reaching the highest point is not the most important part of going for a hike and considering the dangers you may face it is occasionally unwise to attempt at all. However, we want to keep this list as stringent and professional as other mountain lists worldwide. For Gunung Bagging purposes, (and despite probable accusations of pedantry!) this means that if you haven’t reached the highest point then you can’t claim to have ‘bagged’ it. However, be sure to mention such attempts in your email to us so that other hikers know what to expect on tricky or particularly active peaks.

Hall of Fame List

Initially, 20 Ribus did not seem like a large number of peaks to have as a threshold for joining the Hall of Fame, but there appear to be surprisingly few people who have climbed 20 or more. There are a substantial number of people who have climbed between 12 and 18, Indonesians and expatriates alike, so hopefully people will be inspired to climb some new Ribus. In order to allow more time for the word to spread about the existence of the list of Ribus, publication of the first edition of the Hall of Fame will be in December 2010. Thereafter, the list will be updated at the end of every year. The format is as follows: