ngatur nuhun sakabehan urang bisa nele peta gunung karang
atur nuhun yehh

ntos hela nyah

We climbed Gunung Karang on Sunday November 13. Together with two Jodys (ladies, that’s dua orang bernama Jody, not dua laki jodoh) we set out by car at 4 am from Jakarta, early enough to start the hike by 6.30 am.

Note that when you reach the clock tower at the alun alun in Pandeglang, you cannot directly turn right because of the one way system; you must loop around the alun alun first and then jink into Jalan Gunung Karang via the smaller road on the west side of the square. A kilometer or so out of Pandeglang, you reach a fork; be sure to go right.

(The left fork here leads to Pasir Angin, described by Keith above. From Pasir Angin you can climb to the hot springs and crater- alt.1400m, 4 hours round trip- or to a “medicinal” cool spring- alt.1600m, 7 hours round trip. But there is no link to the summit.)

We followed Jalan Gunung Karang and parked at the cellphone mast above Pasir Peuteuy. Any non-sedan vehicle would be able to drive a further 2km to the large village of Kadu Engan. (Don’t turn uphill before Kadu Engan, or you’ll end up in Kampung Baru, which is not where you want to be.)

There’s a T-junction right in the center of Kadu Engan, where you turn steeply uphill through the village. You could park here or even at the top of the village by the telecoms mast.

From here the route was as described by Andy- WSW past a small musholla as you exit the village, curving right to bear north about a kilometer above the village and then cutting back WSW.

There are farm huts and even a small warung among the vegetable fields, which reach as high as 1350m. Enjoy the views across the Banten plains from here- there might not be any view at the top! The “false summit” is at 1720m, where you turn left to descend into the ravine before climbing again to the true summit.

We found the hike fairly straightforward, not too slippery, with minimal need for hand supports. (The climb to the cool springs from Pasir Angin is more taxing, and also requires a guide.) Cloud cover was light but enough to obscure the view. An overnight camp would improve the odds of a clear view, but trees would block some directions anyway.

Our ascent time from Pasir Peuteuy was 4 hours, but only 3 hours from Kadu Engan. Descent time was 3 hours including a couple of long rain stops in the farm huts.

This is great information. I am planing on hiking up the mountain later on in May. Beside driving up Tanguban Perahu this will be my first trek up a mountain in Indonesia. I hope to hike up a number of other mountains in West Java and Banten. I don’t have much information on doing this so this site is a huge help.

Our mistake was launching from Kampung Angin Pasir at 6°17’31.02″S 106° 4’8.23″E and striking out NW from there on a line directly to the peak. The Kawah Haji hotsprings are at 6°16’45.25″S 106° 3’13.96″E which was our dead end. Thanks for the GPS points and yes, that is the jump-off I tried to describe as the best route for a successful climb – next time, eh!

I checked my GPS tracks from the hike. After battling to the summit with a big detour, we descended the right way. The route up should start from Jalan Gunung Karang at lat -6.2592, long 106.0752. From there you hike pretty much straight uphill through the kampung in a west-southwest direction. The trail takes a small deviation (dog leg) northwards about 1 km from the kampung, but then quickly continues back west-southwest. It’s not an amazing hike; but if you get to the summit before the clouds and rain come, maybe you can see Krakatau, which would be worth it.

Failed to reach the peak on a wet, muddy Sunday 10 Jan 10. James and I drove to the eastern most end of Jalan Gunung Karang, just before it turns downslope to the south. From there, a newly paved one-lane road shoots upwards to the 800m contour ending at Kampung Angin Pasir, at a point 4km SSE of the peak. We decided to take a local guide who led us to a hotsprings at 1400m called Kawah Haji. This was a dead-end due to very steep slopes above and around us. Look 2km SSE from the peak (direction 5:30 o’clock) at the 1400m contour. You will see dark gray on the terrain map and you will see clouds on the sat map. The hotsprings, consisting of many small boiling steaming puddles is under the clouds but can be seen as a grey patch partly obscured by clouds. We saw monkeys in there, each of us got leeches along the trail, and we saw a spider whose legs spanned larger than my hand. Still a good hike, but not a great hike – we will find the peak next time! Most promising route is to ascend from the east once you are above 1200m and about 1.5km from the peak – definitely avoid traversing westwards until you have passed to the east of the large crater sitting 1 km SE of the peak. You could possibly try jumping off from Jalan Ciaja-Kunungdahu which can get you to a point due east of the peak, or even ENE, and above the 800m contour. The sat map shows plantations that you could follow westwards as you climb to the peak. We wish you better luck than we had! Keith

Hi Keith, it’s funny how the smaller ones tend to be the difficult ones. I wish I could offer more specific advice but we got lucky even finding the trail on the way up after stumbling around farmland and through thick forest. On the descent, the path lead down to a village (according to one signpost, Kampung Baru) and from there we took a right and followed the track back round the (eastern) side of the mountain to where we had started. I do recall on the way up there was a fork in the track and we went left (higher) which was a mistake – though we never came across the hot springs. The correct approach for the route we came down is from the ENE rather than the SE.