Mount Tambora
The Volcano Whose 1815 Eruption Was The Largest In Recorded History; It Changed The Global Climate For A Year And Left A Caldera Six Kilometres Across · Dompu, West Nusa Tenggara
IN APRIL 1815 TAMBORA PRODUCED THE LARGEST ERUPTION IN RECORDED HISTORY. It threw out something like a hundred cubic kilometres of material, REMOVED ROUGHLY FOURTEEN HUNDRED METRES FROM ITS OWN SUMMIT, and left a CALDERA SIX KILOMETRES WIDE AND A KILOMETRE DEEP. Around ten thousand people died immediately; famine and disease across Sumbawa and Lombok killed many tens of thousands more. THEN IT CHANGED THE WEATHER FOR THE WHOLE PLANET. The sulphate veil it put into the stratosphere produced 1816, THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER - snow in June in New England, failed harvests and famine across Europe, and a cold wet summer beside Lake Geneva during which a housebound Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. YOU CAN WALK TO THE RIM AND LOOK IN. It takes two to three days from Pancasila and almost nobody does it - Bromo takes a thousand people a morning and Tambora, which rewrote a year of world history, takes a handful a week.
Tambora, Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara, Dompu, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
THERE IS NO GATE IN ANY USEFUL SENSE - Tambora is a mountain on SUMBAWA, and the climb is arranged locally. TWO ROUTES ARE USED: PANCASILA, the longer and greener one through forest and coffee, and DORO NCANGA, a shorter savannah route that four-wheel-drive vehicles can climb part of. BOTH TAKE TWO TO THREE DAYS RETURN with camps on the way, and GUIDES AND PORTERS ARE ARRANGED IN THE VILLAGES AT THE TRAILHEAD rather than booked online. A REGISTRATION AND PARK FEE IS COLLECTED. GETTING TO SUMBAWA IS THE FIRST PROBLEM: ferries from Lombok to Poto Tano and then five to eight hours by road, or flights into Bima. THE DRY SEASON, ROUGHLY APRIL TO OCTOBER, is the only sensible window; in the wet the route is mud and the caldera is cloud.