Your letters: The mountains
of Indonesia

Thank you for your informative headline article titled “19 more volcanoes on alert,” (The Jakarta Post, Feb. 4).

Through this connection, I would like to draw the attention of your readers to the most comprehensive English language website available about the mountains of Indonesia, gunungbagging.com.

The site highlights some 226 prominent mountains across the length and breadth of Indonesia. It also includes 81 less-prominent peaks within Indonesia as well as a few major peaks in nearby Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and East Timor, which are all very worth climbing.

Information about each mountain includes interesting facts such as known eruptions and the origin of the name of the mountain, as well as Google maps, a description of the climb, GPS tracks (for downloading), availability of guides, nearby hotels, etc.

Details of many mountains have already been recorded on the website. But others, mainly in more remote areas such as Kalimantan and Papua, which require serious expeditions, are still to be climbed and documented on the website.

The website has useful links to the Volcanological Survey of Indonesia, which provides the latest information on volcanic activity, as well as links to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Project.

This website is becoming an important asset for raising awareness, both locally and internationally, of the “delights of climbing mountains in Indonesia”. We are optimistic that it will make an important contribution to attracting tourism, particularly climbers, trekkers and conservationists, to this wonderful country.

Nicholas Hughes
Jakarta