Comments on: Butak http://www.gunungbagging.com/butak/ Climbing the Mountains of Indonesia Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:12:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Andy http://www.gunungbagging.com/butak/comment-page-1/#comment-3579 Andy Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:18:45 +0000 http://www.gunungbagging.com/?p=561#comment-3579 We just had a rather wet and misty trip to Butak, and failed to reach the summit. No view and no summit bagged is not a good way to start the hiking season. The hike was a little more challenging than expected, partly because of the wet weather, but also because the trail was very overgrown in places. We were lucky to secure the services of 4 excellent porters in Tuyomerto, who hiked at a good pace with our bags while also wielding their machetes to clear the overgrown trail. Their 200k rupiah for a one way service was well earned. Ask for pak budi in Tuyomerta village. Our porters left us at a windswept, misty, and wet alun-alun and returned to Tuyomerto. Cold and wet, we decided to take a break in our tents and eventually decided to leave the summit bagging to the morning when we hoped the weather would have cleared up. Unfortunately, we woke up to rain and mist and at 5:00 am we headed off towards the summit (location stored in a GPS) along the path through the alun-alun. However, as the trail entered the forest below the summit, it was also quite overgrown and hard to follow. The trail seemed to be heading off in the wrong direction, downhill to the southeast. We turned back and bashed around in the forest and understory for a while trying to take the direct route to the summit. With time pressing on and a 2:30 pm flight from Malang, we returned to break camp, soaking wet with the bitter taste of our multiple defeats - no view, no summit, and no time for a good breakfast. We stayed in the Sumber Hotel in Batu, which is highly recommend. Simple, clean accommodation and the staff were very friendly and helpful - they organised an early wrapped (di bungkus) breakfast and our ojeks to Tuyomerto. We also booked the same ojeks to bring us back to the hotel on Sunday, and the hotel arranged our taxis to malang and allowed us to used the mandi get cleaned and changed into dry clothes. Judging by Dan's photos, the views from Butak are spectacular and in sunshine the meadow campsite would be a lovely (if lumpy) campsite. We may well return an try this as a day hike when we climb Semeru later this year. avatar

We just had a rather wet and misty trip to Butak, and failed to reach the summit. No view and no summit bagged is not a good way to start the hiking season.

The hike was a little more challenging than expected, partly because of the wet weather, but also because the trail was very overgrown in places. We were lucky to secure the services of 4 excellent porters in Tuyomerto, who hiked at a good pace with our bags while also wielding their machetes to clear the overgrown trail. Their 200k rupiah for a one way service was well earned. Ask for pak budi in Tuyomerta village.

Our porters left us at a windswept, misty, and wet alun-alun and returned to Tuyomerto. Cold and wet, we decided to take a break in our tents and eventually decided to leave the summit bagging to the morning when we hoped the weather would have cleared up. Unfortunately, we woke up to rain and mist and at 5:00 am we headed off towards the summit (location stored in a GPS) along the path through the alun-alun. However, as the trail entered the forest below the summit, it was also quite overgrown and hard to follow. The trail seemed to be heading off in the wrong direction, downhill to the southeast. We turned back and bashed around in the forest and understory for a while trying to take the direct route to the summit. With time pressing on and a 2:30 pm flight from Malang, we returned to break camp, soaking wet with the bitter taste of our multiple defeats – no view, no summit, and no time for a good breakfast.

We stayed in the Sumber Hotel in Batu, which is highly recommend. Simple, clean accommodation and the staff were very friendly and helpful – they organised an early wrapped (di bungkus) breakfast and our ojeks to Tuyomerto. We also booked the same ojeks to bring us back to the hotel on Sunday, and the hotel arranged our taxis to malang and allowed us to used the mandi get cleaned and changed into dry clothes.

Judging by Dan’s photos, the views from Butak are spectacular and in sunshine the meadow campsite would be a lovely (if lumpy) campsite. We may well return an try this as a day hike when we climb Semeru later this year.

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