| Elevation | 2,767m (9,078ft); Prominence: 1,104 m |
|---|---|
| Province | Jawa Timur (East Java) |
| Ribu Category |  Tinggi Sedang |
| Links | Wikipedia English ; Wikipedia Indonesia |
Photos
Photos provided by Barry Claasen, Tim Hannigan, Wolfgang Piecha, Heinz von Holzen and Java Lava
Bagging It!
Ijen is Java’s largest crater lake and one of East Java’s most visited natural attractions. The actual highest point here is the top of the now-extinct Mount Merapi (not to be confused with Central Java’s volcano of the same name or Sumatra’s Mount Marapi). Both the peak and the crater lake lie within the Ijen-Merapi Maelang Reserve. Very few visitors hike further than the crater lake – usually less than ten a year – as it is fascinating in its own right. You can witness 400 of the worldʼs strongest and enduring people harvesting 70 kg of sulfur out of toxic smoking hot fumes, then carrying the load in two baskets on their shoulders up a steep, at times almost vertical 500 meter deep volcanic crater and then 3 km down hill to the collection point.
The ranger post at Paltuding (1,850m) is the place to arrange a permit and guides. From the post, it is just two kilometres and less than one hour to Pondok Bunder (2,214m) where the sulphur porters weight their heavy loads. From Pondok Bunder to the crater rim (2,350m) is a further kilometre. First the path climbs rather steeply for 300 metres, then it flattens and leads along and around the base of the actual volcano, ending on the rim of the volcano and unveiling a terrific new scenery. Straight ahead is the inner vent of the volcano – which is often filled with fumes from the sulfur vents – and the turquoise crater later. Here most visitors take a short break and witness how the porters slowly carry their loads of sulfur to the top of the volcano, ending their hardest part of their bone-breaking journey. Here you can turn left for the climb to the highest point of the crater rim (2,400m) which offers magnificent views. Alternatively, walk anti-clockwise along the crater rim to the point where you reach some ruins from where you have an even more expansive views of the lake.
From the crater rim, a steep gravely path leads down to the sulfur deposits as well as to the warm, poisonous waters of the lake. The walk normally takes about 20 minutes but you may well spend a long time taking photographs not only of the porters but also of the surreal surroundings. Take a lot of care at the bottom where the sulfur is harvested, and keep in mind that the fumes are poisonous making breathing impossible when sudden winds changes blow the fumes into the opposite directions. Here it is essential to wear face masks to protect you from the worst of the fumes.
From this point, the track to the summit is virtually non existent. After leaving the rim, the path leads for about 300 metres down a very bushy ravine that ends on the bottom of a rather steep grassy flank of the volcano. As there is really no track there is a lot of spiky and thorny undergrowth making long trousers absolutely essential. For the next hour the nearly invisible track is very steep and at times rather slippery. In less than an hour and a half you will reach a lightly forested ridge (2,650m) that offers plenty of protection to set up camp although you may need to chop down a few bushes to make enough space. You could just about make it to the summit and back in long day, but the most spectacular views are to be had at dawn so it is probably worth spending a night here.
From the makeshift camp it ought to take just over an hour to reach the highest peak for dawn. However, the vegetation is very dense and unless you have guides who are willing to spend time cutting a way through, it may not be possible. Being the easternmost significant peak in Java, the views from the top to Bali’s Gunung Agung and Lombok’s Gunung Rinjani are fabulous at sunrise. Peaks to the west include the huge massifs of Gunung Raung and Argopuro. However, the most impressive view is the crater lake 500 metres below and deeply imbedded in the enormous, rugged walls of the volcano.
It takes two hours to descend to the crater rim and then a comfortable four kilometres down a gentle slope to Paltuding. It’s easy with just a rucksack on your shoulders, but think of the sulphur porters who have to bring a painful 70 kg of volcanic rocks down the hill in order to receive their meagre rewards of US$4.00. Amazingly, you may even find it difficult to keep up with their pace. If you do, I’m sure they would be most grateful for a gift of a packet of their beloved kretek cigarettes.
Practicalities
| Getting there | Better approached from the north although the route from Banyuwangi is passable in a jeep. |
|---|---|
| Accommodation | There are plenty of places to stay nearby because Ijen is a leading tourist attraction. |
| Permits | A nightmare! Officially you are supposed to arrange a permit in advance from some office or other in Surabaya. The information on this office and why it is required is very unclear. There is normally not a problem just climbing up yourself but you may have to ‘tip’ the staff in the Kawah Ijen office. |
| Water sources | Take enough supplies with you. |
Bagging information provided by Heinz von Holzen
Made an attempt on Ijen-Merapi today. Some great views but overall a rather disappointing experience unfortunately due to a mixture of all the usual problems – excessively expensive transport, terrible roads, having to pay ‘uang rokok’ for permission to climb a hill and then the ‘puncak’ not being the actual ‘puncak’. I got a jeep from Banyuwangi which was a rather steep 700,000 for 12 hours rental with driver (my fault for travelling alone I suppose – hopefully enough time to get to the summit and back) because there is seemingly no other transport available from the Banyuwangi side. The jeep proved totally essential as although there are plenty of signs for Kawah Ijen the road up from Banyuwangi is not passable by ordinary vehicles on the higher sections – that’s why most visitors head to Ijen from the north though why local authorities haven’t done something about the condition of the road is a mystery given that it is one of East Java’s main tourist attractions. The warungs at Paltuding were full of tourists heading up or back down from dawn at Ijen.
I had been advised to ask for a chap named Pak Im who is supposedly the main person who knows about Ijen-Merapi – a mountain which despite being only 400 metres higher than the Ijen rim itself is hardly ever climbed by anyone and is wrongly considered a major expedition. At first he declined to help me reach the top as he claimed you would have to set off at 5am to climb Merapi and come back in one day. After a week of bizarre and ridiculous reasons given for not being able to climb various other peaks in East Java (including ‘magic in the area’ for Gunung Tarub/Lamongan) this seemed fairly normal. I trotted over to the office to enquire about someone else who might be able to assist. My request to climb Merapi was greeted with a great deal of shock. I was told it wasn’t possible, that I needed to have a special permit from Surabaya (several hundred km away). In the end it was agreed that if I took full responsibility for any accidents enroute then if I paid 200,000 ‘admin’ fee (to keep the guys in the office with enough cigarettes for the next week) plus 300,000 guide fee then it would be ok. It’s amazing but rather depressing what a few bank notes can do. Pak Im suddenly re-appeared and we set off.
Seeing the sulphur collectors coming down the Ijen trail with their heavy loads is a surreal and humbling sight – a very tough job indeed. We were at Ijen crater itself in just over an hour and the lake shone a brilliant blue in the morning sunlight and there were some excellent views west to Gunung Raung. From the rim we turned right through dense foliage and headed up a bracken-covered ridge of Gunung Ijen-Merapi. The path is faint and we needed a machete – this was the first trip up Ijen-Merapi by anyone for well over a year! Views down to Ijen lake are superb at this section but watch out for occasional razor-sharp grass. The drop to the left is also very steep so be extra careful. Finally the rim of Merapi is reached (we did it in just 3 hours) and you look down over the north-western sandy crater (there is another one further east with a horse-shoe shaped clump of foliage in the middle). This point we had reached (approx 2,777m) was, according to my guide, the ‘puncak’ and there was indeed a small sign – allegedly made by volcanologists a few years ago. However it was obvious that the forested ridge to the north of the eastern crater was higher (2,803m according to the Bako map) and I tried to convince the guide to keep on going with his machete to reach the true summit. He declined, saying he had never been there and never heard of anyone going there. I’m pretty sure Java Lava got to the true summit in 2006 so I told him to wait for me while I descending into the dry sandy crater and tried to bash my way up the other side and onto the ridge higher ridge above the horse-shoe crater. The first sandy crater itself was a great place to walk in – on the world’s most densely-populated island you can still find some remarkably wild areas. Unfortunately the vegetation – including Javanese Edelweiss – was just too thick to get up to the ridge between the two main sandy craters and follow it along to the highest point of the ridge. It would have required at least two people with machetes and probably a night spent up at the top. It reminded me of Papandayan where the highest point of the mountain massif is just too thickly-vegetated to be passable expect at a snail’s pace with a machete. It was at least another 400 metres distance of thick and spiky bush so I had to retreat and we were back down at the Ijen crater in just over an hour.
Despite the short distance of the hike, this one requires more than one day at the moment because of the terrain. It’s a hike of tremendous potential and a real shame that more local people haven’t thought of climbing this hill. It’s the last huge mountain before the Bali strait so views east to Bali are incredible. Why have so few hikers shown any initiative in this regard? It’s also a great shame that any other hikers wishing to climb it will – for the moment – have to pay bribe money at the office in order to try to do it. In my eperiences so far, it would appear that Indonesian tourist attractions and national parks seem more concerned with keeping people out or deflating their plans or simply pocketing whatever cash they can extract from Indonesians and non-Indonesians alike rather than enabling and assisting access – here’s hoping things will change before too long. It wouldn’t take a lot of work to keep the route open and actually allow people to explore the area and perhaps put up a sign or two. I’m sure it would be a very popular route once people began to know about it – many of the ‘turis’ who wander up to Ijen every morning must wonder what is it the top of the bigger neighbouring peak. That hikers supposedly need permission from Surabaya to hike up this interesting mountain highlights the fact that serious problems with access to the natural environment remain for all hikers in Indonesia.
For pedantic baggers out there (of which I admit to being one) according to Wolfgang Piecha, one of the Java Lava trips certainly got further east toward the true summit than both my own and Heinz and Roman’s trips did. This was probably in 2006 when perhaps the vegetation was a little less dense that it is now. They weren’t specifically looking out for the highest point so they may or may not have ‘bagged’ it. They did enjoy the ‘view on the straits and Bali’ and had a good look at the horseshoe shaped ‘island’ in the more eastern crater. I imagine I will return again next year and spend a night up there with some guides who have machetes and are willing to go for it.