Polina's journal

Raung, Indonesia

Jun 2023

In May 2023 I went on an adventure with a group of friends to summit Raung, an active volcano in Java, Indonesia.

Raung is known as toughest hike on Java - with 2000m elevation gain, and technical sections to reach the summit at 3344m.

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Day 1: Weclome to Java

We drove from Bali to Java (including a ferry) which took most of the first day.

After getting off the ferry in Java, we stopped for some Durian. It was a special experience for some people in our group, as they were trying the stinky fruit for the first time.

I’m not a huge fan of Durian, but I appreciate it once in a while!

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We arrived at the “basecamp” late in the evening. It was an empty house in a small village, in the middle of the jungle. We had some noodles for dinner and went to sleep on mattresses spread out on the floor.

Day 2: Up through the jungle

The song of the mosques woke us up at 4:30. There was even a speaker conveniently located right next to our window, to make sure we hear it!

We had some coffee and Indonesian breakfast (fried rice with tempeh). I went for a quick walk around the village. There were only a few extremely basic houses.

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At 6am, our ojeks arrived (ojek is a motorbike taxi in Indonesia). They loaded our backpacks on their bikes, and drove us to the start of the trail.

I rode on the back of a very small (and broken) motorbike. It was a slightly scary, but very cool ride through small villages, fields, rivers, and jungle, in the morning light.

Day 2: Up through the jungle

The ojeks dropped us off at the start of the trail, where we met our guides again, and had some more coffee. After a quick briefing, we started the ascent through the jungle.

(Not without stopping for some more Durian at the beginning of the trail!)

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The 1400m elevation gain took us 7 hours in total - including breaks for lunch, snacks, and to catch out breath.

During the last 3 hours, the trail became quite steep, and involved some scrambling using tree branches and rocks.

I loved the ancient trees and the thick high-altitude jungle surrounding us.

Camp above the clouds

Around 4pm, we arrived at the camp site. It was incredibly beautiful. We camped on a small opening between the trees, above the clouds.

We had dinner and watched the sunset. In the distance I could see Semeru and other Javanese volcanoes.

We went to our tents at 6:30pm. I was tired and ready to sleep. However the other camping group was quite noisy, talking and playing music late. Also, it was very cold. I got only a few hours of sleep before our wake up call in the middle of the night.

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Sunrise summit push

Our guides woke us up at 1am.

It was almost painful to get up at this hour, especially with the cold.

We had more fried rice and tempeh for breakfast in the dark.

Then we put on our climbing gear and our headlights, and started our ascent to the summit - another 600m.

After 2 hours in the dark, we arrived above the tree line. In another hour, we were on the ridges of the volcano, as the sun was preparing to rise. It was surreal.

Also, here is where the technical part started.

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Summit of an active volcano

Around 7am, absolutely exhausted, we made it to the summit.

It was otherworldly. The crater is 10 kilometers wide. Smoke was rising from the bottom. We had a perfect 360 view of out surroundings, the island of Java.

We spent an hour here, resting and taking in the otherworldly views.

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Back down

Finally, it was time to start the long way back down.

Did I mention that this hike usually takes 3 days, but we decided to do it in two?

So now, after waking up at 1am, and hiking up for 5 hours (including technical climbing), we had about 2000m descent. All the way down to the village.

But the weather was amazing, and the views were insane, and the technical sections were quite fun! The most difficult part was behind us, so we enjoyed this a lot.

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We arrived at our camp at 11am for lunch and a quick nap.

Then we packed up the tents and descended down through the jungle. It started raining and we were sliding in the mud most of the way down! At this point we were slightly delirious with exhaustion, and having crazy fun.

We arrived at our base camp after dark, had one more meal of fried rice and tempeh, and fell asleep immediately.

The next day we said goodbye to Raung and drove back to Bali, where an entire week of rest was needed.

Raung was an amazing adventure and I’m really happy I got to do this.