Meet Zainal

The guide is the difference

Rinjani is not a walk. It is loose volcanic scree at two in the morning, weather that turns in minutes, and a summit push that asks everything you have. On terrain like that, the person leading you matters more than anything else in the package.

I grew up in the village where the Sembalun route begins. I know the mountain the way most people know their own street: every loose rock, every weather sign, every shortcut that saves an hour when the clouds roll in. I built this operation myself, with a team of guides and porters from the villages around the mountain.

There is no call centre and no reseller in between. Send a booking request and I read it. Message on WhatsApp and I answer. Climb, and I or one of my senior guides climbs with you.

What you can check

Plenty of operators promise the world online. Rather than stacking badges, here is the concrete, checkable core of who we are.

The first time I climbed Rinjani, I was carrying

I was sixteen, and I went up as a porter. Only once. It was so hard that somewhere on the way up I wanted to give up, and I could not, so I kept walking. Then I knew what I wanted: to come back to this mountain as a guide.

There was one problem. Guides speak English, and at school I never cared about English. So I signed up for a course on Lombok, and I learned it there.

So when I see you slowing down on the way to the summit, I know what it feels like. I have been there, with a load on my back. That is why I choose the porters and guides on my team myself.

On the easy stretches you will hear us singing. If it is Viva la Vida, that is probably me.