are there any photos?
could you please send it in my email ???

you can also go up there through Bantaeng but take a little longer
with views that are not less good with the other pathways

This beast has been on my list for quite some time and I finally climbed it last weekend. Not having enough time for a traverse of Lompobatang and Bawakaraeng (you need 4 days) I obviously decided to go for the higher of the two, Lompobatang. Heinz and Roman did this just a few months ago so I had their trip report to help me prepare. In addition, I got in touch with a fabulous man called Dodo who lives in Makassar and is a legend to many foreigners who have passed through the city. I urge you to get in touch with him if you visit Makassar and are in need of help to arrange things – you couldn’t find a more generous, amusing and energetic man! His blog is Dodopenman.blogspot.com
He picked me up at the airport and we headed off for a local ginger drink – Sarabba. Dodo put me in touch with a group of student hikers ( see http://www.mahesa.or.id ) who had been up Lompobatang a couple of times. A great bunch – one of them, Dede, had recently cycled all the way from Makassar to Manado (it took 1 month)!
The following morning we set off on the 4 hour journey to Lembang Bu’ne. I originally suggested that we could just climb at night in time for dawn at the summit and then back down again the next morning, therefore removing the need for tents etc. However, the boys obviously wanted some quality time lounging around in the forest eating endless indomies (instant noodles). So after leaving behind some basic gifts and praying for a safe trip we left the basecamp (basically the house of the village head) at around 7pm on the Saturday evening.
By Pos 3 a couple of the hikers were having real trouble and it was decided that we would camp at Pos 5 and set off to the summit at 3am. The night brought moderate winds and light rain so nobody except me wanted to leave the camp until first light. In fact, only 3 of us did. It was still grey at 6am and I think the others wondered why I even wanted to bother given that the view would be very much limited. Indeed, my photos do not do justice to this mountain at all. In fine weather it must be one of the top mountains in Sulawesi. Despite the weather, the terrain beyond Pos 7 was an absolute joy to negotiate – narrow ridges, occasional Edelweiss bushes, steep rocky terrain, lonely slabs of rock seemingly randomly positioned by the side of the trail. There were a few nice moments when the clouds parted to allow a glimpse of the ridge we were on – but overall we were rather unlucky. By Pos 9, the chaps decided it was time for more noodles and coffee and we sheltered under the huge rock cliff. I waited…and waited…. finally Dede (he who cycled all the way to Manado earlier this year) said he would come with me whilst Rio stayed behind for some more rest. The last section was even more fun (and also more dangerous) than any other part of the trail and you really have to be happy doing a bit of minor scrambling for one section over a narrow ridge of rock.
My GPS said we had over 1km still to go before the highest point but suddenly the cement trig pillar appeared before us, along with a rock on which are carved the names of many hikers who have celebrated reaching this peak. I couldn’t see ‘James Brooke’. There’s also a sign in the trees proclaiming this peak to be Pos X (10) – the true top. My GPS gave 2878m which is about right for a mountain with an official published elevation of 2874m. I had a quick look at the nearby rusty transmitter compound and checked that the trail really did only go down. It was too grey to see very far but this was definitely a major top. Only thing was, my GPS was telling me the real peak was over 1km away towards Bawakaraeng. Very odd. I asked Dede and he said the trail just leads down towards the valley (Lembah Karisma) between Lompobatang and Bawakaraeng and that the trig pillar is the true summit. This ties in with all of the pictures I have seen online of other hikers and there is no mention of a peak higher than the one with the summit pillar.
SRTM /and Google Earth errors are not uncommon, especially in steep terrain e.g narrow ridges. Having gotten a GPS elevation reading of above the published height I reluctantly decided not to completely test the patience of the now rather wet students by insisting we continue even further beyond what any normal person would call the ‘summit’. So me and Dede returned to Pos 9 and found Rio half asleep in the semi-cave beneath the huge rock. We then had a rather uneventful trip back down to Pos 5 and then back down to the village and home. Dodo was, of course, waiting for us with some food and magic tricks!
The following day me , Dodo and Iren (a dental student from Toraja) went to a Muslim children’s party and listened to some dangdut music. Dodo sang a song about a sakit hati (heart ache) being better than sakit gigi (toothache). Later I enjoyed a ride in one of those mad motorized becaks (‘bentor’). It was a hilarious experience but I couldn’t stop thinking about whether or not I had bagged the true peak! Strangely, one of the computers at Makssar airport had Google Earth installed on it so I had a quick check. SRTM data (including elevation data on Google Earth) is generally always a bit wrong (generally 15 m minimum lower than the true height of a mountain, but this can increase in areas of steep terrain). The trig pillar summit I had visited was 2878m on GPS yet about 100 metres below that on Google Earth. The highpoint on Google Earth (1km further to the NW) has an elevation of about 2840m.
This obviously called for a second, definitive opintion – the topographical map of the area from Bakosurtanal. The following day I managed to get hold of sheet 2010-62 (Malakaji) Scale 1: 50000. The trig pillar summit is 2874m. The NW peak (un-named on the Bako map but known to local hikers as Puncak Ko’bang / Kohbang) is 4 metres lower at 2870m! So we had reached the highpoint and Google Earth data is wrong (mainly because of the steepness and narrowness of the summit peak). I’m sure a trip to the NW peak is worthwhile in good weather though, because from there you would be able to see the valley separating Lompobatang from Bawakaraeng.
Ultimately, the poor weather on Lompobatang has given me an extra incentive to head back to the area and climb Bawakaraeng next year sometime. Better luck for other hikers for this mountain range is truly excellent.

I had been planning to make a traverse of Lompobatang and Bawakaraeng this coming (long) weekend. Despite being less than 4km apart, it turns out that one day is not enough to get from the summit of Lompobatang to the summit of Bawakaraeng, such is the steepness and difficulty of the terrain. So it’s a 4 day trip to do Malakaji-Lompobatang-Bawakaraeng-Malino, more time than I have so I’ll have to save the slightly lower Bawakaraeng for another time. Interestingly, the traverse route (lintas Lompobatang-Bawakaraeng) was pioneered in 1987 by by an Indonesian hiking club called Karisma. The valley between the two peaks is know know as Lembah Karisma (Charisma Valley) and there are two small rivers there.
I hope to write a full report on my return from Lompobatang next week…

A fantastic and detailed write-up by Heinz von Holzen is here….
http://indovolcano.com/mount-moncong-lompobatang-sulawesi.php

According to a friend, there’s an endemic flycatcher there, not sure about ducks. Try the site http://burung-nusantara.org which has listings for local guides and sites “around makassar”.

Does anyone know if there are any species of Duck native to the area?

Ada sesiapa yang tau kalau ada spesies Itik/Bebek yang asli di tempat Moncong Lompobatang?