Trekking up Mt Agung – April 6, 2011

Despite getting very little exercise during the past few months of travel, I decided to sign up for a sunrise trek up Mt. Agung, an active volcano and at 3142 m the highest point on Bali. It last erupted in 1963.  The climb was described in the brochure as difficult, but I figured I’d be fine.

I was picked up at 10:30pm the evening of the 5^th, and we drove a couple hours from Ubud to the volcano. We started our climb around 1:00am, with an offering at the temple located at the base. The group was fairly small – a couple, another solo guy and girl and me. We were accompanied by a local guide and two other guides.

It started out easily enough in the jungle. There had been rain the past few nights, but we were lucky and had a beautiful clear night. We took numerous short breaks throughout, for everyone in the group to catch up. About halfway up we lost the couple, and one of the guides. The rest of us kept heading up. Two thirds of the way up, it got rocky and rather technical. The rocks were a bit slippery as well from all the rain. I scrambled around using my hands quite a bit. I’m glad that it was so dark and I couldn’t see how far down I’d fall if I slipped.

The ascent took about 4.5hrs, and we arrived just before sunrise at 6:00am. We got some beautiful views of the sunrise, Bali and the surrounding islands before the clouds rolled in and covered everything. We could also see down into a giant crater, but it just looked like normal rocks. No molten lava or anything. There was a small statue perched at the edge, and this was to make another religious offering. It was also absolutely freezing at the summit. I thought I’d be over dressed with all my layers, but I was wrong. We ate our breakfast quickly, and then started back down.

The descent took about as long as the ascent had. We took the same route down that we had going up, and it was worse going down I think. Our guide turned on the radio on his phone, and played all sorts of terrible music as we went down. He was smiling and singing the entire time, with some flowers tucked behind his ear.