Climbing the most active volcano of Indonesia: Mount Merapi

The Merapi volcano is one of the most active volcanoes of Indonesia with regular eruptions since 1548 and you can climb it in an overnight trek, which can be arranged in the city if Yogyakarta, and with a good fitness level, it´s a do-able trek. Most people decide for a night hike to avoid both the excessive heat during the day, and the be able to enjoy the beautiful sunrise from the summit. In fact, from the top of the volcano you can even see Mount Sundoro, Sumbing, Lawu and Merbabu.

About Mount Merapi

Even though, with an altitude of 2900 meters above sea level, Merapi is by far not the highest volcano of Indonesia, it is the most active one (generally speaking, when I was in Indonesia, the Mount Gunung on Bali had just erupted, but generally speaking Merapi has the most activity). The most recent eruptions were in 1994, 2006 and 2010. Interesting is that the altitude of the volcano is now 38 meters lower than before the 2010 eruptions, so the summit was 38 meters closer for us to reach 😉

The literal translation of Gunung Merapi as it is called in Bahasa Indonesia is Fire Mountain. Furthermore, Mount Merapi plays a role in diverse javanese myths and the locals really respect the spirit of the Volcano.

Things to bring on your hike

• Water (there is no water during the trek so bring enough with you)
• Snacks (you will have breakfast down again in the morning, but you might some power to get you up that mountain)
• A head torch
• Rain jacket
• Good shoes
• Camera (or your phone..)
• A jacket for when you are on top waiting for the sunrise, it gets chilly there.

The hike

Since I was travelling by myself and did not find anyone else interested in making the overnight hike, I joined an already existing group. I signed up through the hostel where I was staying: Sae Sae hostel, where I paid around 30 euros including the entrance ticket to the park. I made sure that the day of the trekking I just took it easy and that I had a good dinner. Then I got picked up by a little van from my hostel at 10pm. After stopping by some other hostels to pick up others we ended up being a little group of seven people and two guides.

 

Currently the only access to the volcano is through the town of New Selo, on the north side of the volcano.  The other route in the south slope starting from Kaliurang, is closed to visitors because considered too dangerous. If you are not joining another group, you can take a bus during the day from the cities of Solo and Yogyakarta, though the services might not be very reliable. I have heard of some people doing some hitchhiking. Usually I am all about adventure and nót joining groups, but since I was by myself and did not have a reliable GPS track I decided to join that group, and this way you can also support the local community. In case you want to sleep in New Selo, there are various local homestays where you should expect to be paying around 30.000 Rp per person.

In our case, after 2 hours we arrived in New Selo. They take enough time for this drive, because anything can happen on the Indonesian roads, causing you a delay in your hike and thus probably missing the sunrise. We were quite early though and had to wait down in a little homestay until it was 1am and we could start hiking. That wait of around 45 minutes made that I was about frozen to the bone and I was nervous about the cold to come on the summit.

The first 1.5 kilometers out of New Selo is a very steep asphalted road until the real beginning of the path. Somewhere along this road you will also find the registration point where you need to pay the entrance fee. I have read different prices, going from 225.000Rp during the weekend if you are a foreigner, 150.000Rp during the week or 12.000 if somehow you can show that you are living in Indonesia or an Indonesian resident for some time. For us it was included in the price of the group I joined.

The real deal

From New Selo you start the real hike and despite my pretty good fitness level and experience with hiking, it was a pretty tough one. It starts ok with some concrete tiles covered in volcanic ash, then you pass some agricultural terraces and then you enter the forest. As I did this hike during the raining season, it was quite slippery and the roots and branches were definitely a big help to find my balance. Of the group of seven, the first two Indonesian girls actually only made it to the part after the agricultural terraces, but, they also did not seem to have the best fitness level.

About ten minutes into the hike the battery on my head torch went low, I guess that I should have checked before leaving. However, I was lucky that it was full moon and clear skies, so I really did not need a head torch at all.
This hike up went on for about three hours after which all of a sudden the first tents appeared. Unfortunately, with this also got the garbage pollution. Indonesian really are not the best in cleaning their garbage and think it is fine to let it linger around in nature. Something that makes me quite angry and sad at the same time, especially if you came to camp in exactly that, nature.

 

Almost there

However, seeing the tents, I did get very excited, thinking I had made it almost to the top. But when I crossed the tree line, I saw there was definitely a very large way to go still. Because time was pressing and I really wanted to be on top for the sunrise I pushed myself through. The next stop is what they call the Pasar Bubrah plateau. This is where most people had pitched their tents and is at 2700 meters high. From here you can clearly see the summit of the volcano, and also that it will not be easy to get there.

Struggling the last 200 meters of altitude through loose volcanic rocks, sand and ash, falling down and having your feet sink down in the meters of ash and with the feeling that sometimes you slip down more than the step you just set up, this piece with 60% inclination is all about persistence. Though I really questioned mine a couple of times as I thought ´I´m sure here the sunrise will also be fine´, but I knew that no sunrise is ever as nice as from the summit of a mountain where you can see 360 degrees around. So, I pushed myself once more. And after some final climbing over rocks and stones, all of a sudden you are there. Just around 5am and just in time for the sunrise.

The crater

The crater is massive, though for those who are expecting Disney scenes with bubbling magma, sorry! There is a lot of sulfurous fumes coming out of the crater, making it hard to actually see the bottom of the crater. Also, you don´t want to be leaning too much forward, especially since our guide had told us that some weeks earlier someone had fallen down the crater and it had taken them three days to even find him, not to mention that he, of course, did not survive the fall.

The sunrise from the summit was indeed everything I had hoped for, changing to all the different shared of blue, yellow and orange it gave different shadows within the crater, as well as overlooking the surrounding mountains. We sat there for around 45 minutes, taking our different pictures and selfies and waiting for the entire group of five to be complete on the summit again.

 

 

Back down

From here, there was only one way, and that was down. By then I was actually starting to get pretty tired, I have never been really great at skipping entire nights and especially not if I climb volcanoes during the night. But I know that the going downs can be just as challenging as the going ups, especially with my knee injury.

Of course, the first part was fun as it involved a lot of running down the volcanic ashy slopes, filling my shoes (and nose and ears, as I fell a couple of times) entirely with ash. Where it took me about 4 hours to go up, the way down was around 3 hours.