Mount Batur Sunrise Trek

Hiking Mount Batur had been on our bucket list since we first started planning our trip to Bali. Mount Batur is an active volcano that is located about 2 hours northeast of Ubud. We woke up very excited for the day, even though our alarms went off at 1:15am. The drive to Mount Batur from Ubud is about 2 hours so we had a 2am pickup time that morning to make it to the trail’s start by 4am.

Upon arriving at the bottom of Mount Batur, we were greeted by many guides. We were partnered with one of the guides and given coffee and flashlights before starting our journey. The trail was very dark the entire way, the only light being from our flashlights. There were parts that were pretty steep, but for the most part, it wasn’t too bad. What made the trek difficult was the volcanic rocks and ash. Our guide had to reach out and grab my arm a few times so I didn’t fall. I ended up having a few scratches and a shoe full of volcanic ash by the time we finally made it up the volcano. Adam did too, although I am sure he will deny it. 😉

We arrived at the viewing point in about 2 hours. We snapped a few photos and videos before we had breakfast. Of course, Adam’s photos look like glamour shots and mine clearly show that waking up at 1am and going on a sweaty hike doesn’t work for me. I’ll just make my photo a bit smaller. 🙂

For breakfast, we had banana and peanut butter sandwiches and eggs. Our eggs were cooked using the steam from the volcano, which we thought was pretty awesome!

The sunrise was absolutely incredible, well worth the 2 hour hike to the top. While these pictures are beautiful, they just don’t do justice.

Adam got a little creative while taking photos of a stray dog that was on our hike. Beautiful shot. ❤

If you look closely, you will see Mount Agung. It is the taller peak on the right, just behind the first, slightly darker looking peak. Mount Agung was on the brink of eruption while we were traveling in Bali. Many of the villages surrounding Mount Agung had been evacuated before we arrived. At times, we could see smoke coming up from the volcano. Its last eruption was in 1963 and was one of Indonesia’s most devastating eruptions, killing nearly 1,500 people. Luckily, for the people of Bali, it has settled down a bit over the past month and isn’t as big of a threat as it was back in September/October.

After viewing the sunrise, we started our trek back down the volcano with a detour around the edge of the crater. Again, these pictures just don’t do justice.

The caldera, or crater, is about 10 kilometers by 13 kilometers in size. If you look closely, you can see steam coming out of the ground towards the bottom of the photo. We were able to feel hot steam pockets at certain spots on our trek, which was very neat and slightly scary.

The elevation of Mount Batur is just over 1,700 meters so it was a tad bit chilly at the top.

You can see more steam in these photos.

The last time Mount Batur erupted was in 2000, shooting ash 300 meters above the crater. It started acting up again in 2009 but luckily decided to go back to sleep.

We saw a few wild monkeys on our hike down. Adorable. ❤

If you look closely, you can see a monkey sitting just in front of the tree.

We finished!

We had such an amazing time on our Mount Batur hike. It was pretty neat seeing the trail in daylight as we hiked down. There were several spots that had steep dropoffs on both sides of the trail, which wasn’t very comforting knowing we just hiked it in complete darkness and had no idea of the dropoffs.

It took us about another 2 hours to get back down to the start of the trek. Our driver, Dewa, was there waiting for us and recommended a hot springs nearby to soothe our muscles. The hot springs were actually on a resort next to Lake Batur, just a short drive from the trial start. It seemed more of a tourist trap than anything but was still pretty relaxing.

 

After grabbing some lunch and relaxing in the hot springs for a bit, we headed back to our villa in Ubud. We had two ladies stop by that afternoon to give us a couples massage, which was much needed after having been up since 1am and hiking for nearly 5 hours.

For dinner, Boni, Ketut and Komang stopped by the villa to make us a traditional Balinese dinner. It was so yummy; probably one of the best meals we had during our time in Bali. We had chicken curry, chicken satay, mixed vegetables, rice and a yummy fried coconut sliver that tasted like a cookie. My mouth is watering as I type this. SO DELICIOUS!

Our trek to Mount Batur was probably one of the more memorable parts of our trip. We had an amazing time and saw the most beautiful sunrise we have probably ever seen. It was definitely a great day. To read about day 3 of our adventures, CLICK HERE!

❤ Elaine