Day 15a: Ijen Crater

Well that was an epic adventure! We knew it was going to be tough, and man it was.

Our alarms went off at the earliest possible time of the day, 12:45am! We dressed and grabbed our gear before heading downstairs to meet the driver who were both waiting for us (I'm not sure why there were two of them, company I guess?). Our vehicle was an 80s-era Land Cruiser that was soaking wet, and once we left the sheltered lobby area it was obvious why - it was raining, a lot.

It rained pretty constantly though not especially heavily for most of the 75 minute drive out to the trailhead, though there was a reasonable amount of lightning around as well. It didn't seem that close by, but still not what you want when you're out on a mountain! Alas.

Arrived at the trailhead a little after 2am and had a huge mug of tea while waiting for the guide. This time I'm 100% sure he never said his name! As usual he only spoke limited English so we just shrugged our shoulders, said "Yes" and headed off.

The first leg was probably a kilometre of very slowly ascending trail through a forest; quite wide at this point and a lot of groups around. Though we did take a bush shortcut for a few hundred metres to save a little time. The gradient was steadily ramping up and up, and I was starting to struggle a bit being pretty unfit and overweight (and carrying the bag while our stuff!). Shandos took the bag and we started taking things a bit slower; our guide saying "slow slow, no problem" the whole time. Though as usual Shandos kept powering ahead - she's a fast walker at the best of times! The guide commented at one point to me "Mamma - strong!!". I pointed out that she has very long legs, which he agreed with (he was very short, only shoulder height on us).

After an hour or so of climbing, it flattened out as we reached the crater rim. Here the wind howled across and whipped rain along too, plus fog so you couldn't see much on either side (bearing in mind it was also still very dark). I think this section was probably only 200m or so, but it was very exposed and horrible. Although the rain wasn't particularly heavy, it was still constantly misting down and by this point we were pretty saturated despite rain jackets.

Once we'd crossed the exposed ridge line, we descended slightly to the crater rim overlook where a lot of groups stop. We had a choice - either head approx 1km around the rim to watch the sunrise, or descend into the caldera for the famous blue fire. We chose the blue fire, since it was pretty obvious the rain and cloud would prevent any kind of nice sunrise view. The guide wasn't super keen on me going down into the caldera since I'd struggled a fair bit to get this far - I wasn't exhausted by any means but going down to the blue fire obviously means climbing back out. But I hadn't come this far to stop and wait, so down we went.

The guide pointed out very clearly the signs saying "DANGEROUS GASES, ENTRY PROHIBITED" with skulls and crossbones and that sort of thing, but we walked through the gate like everyone else and pressed on. The descent into the caldera was very difficult - we could now smell the sulphur from below, and the path was much narrower, rocky, slippery underfoot due to the rain, and of course it was dark. I was mostly OK since I was wearing my hiking boots, but Shandos needed help in a few places since she only had her lightweight shoes on.

About 30 minutes into the descent we donned our gas masks, unfortunately they didn't cover our eyes! And still dealing with the remnants of a cold made breathing through it very difficult, but we persevered. Although there were fewer people on this track, it was still crowded in places, and made trickier by the miners ascending with their loads. Yes, down at the sulphur vents they actually mine rocks of sulphur. Miners carry these huge bright yellow rocks back up the path we were struggling with, in wicker baskets on their backs. According to our guide they get paid 7000 rupiah ($0.70 AUD) per kilogram of sulphur! Each load is between 70-90 kg, and they do the route twice a day. Very tough work, my hat goes off to them.

Another 30 minutes of descending into progressively thicker plumes of sulphur and we finally made the floor of the caldera. Here it was actually pretty tortuous - the wind would swirl around and blow the plume in all directions, so you might get a 30 second respite but then a huge cloud would come straight at you. Blue flame was erupting from vents on the other side of the plume so we didn't have a perfect view, but it was still very impressive. The sulphur gas shoots out of the ground at around 600 degrees and then reacts with the oxygen, burning at an extremely high heat.

We watched for around 10 minutes (it comes and goes, not a constant stream) and tried to take a few photos which turned out hilariously badly. My iPhone was soaking wet at this point which means the screen doesn't really respond to touches, and we were so sodden by this point I didn't have anything dry to wipe it with. Probably better to keep it mostly out of the sulphur clouds I guess! Only later did I realise we'd carried the GoPro all the way down and didn't use it!

There's a huge lake covering most of the floor of the caldera which we unfortunately couldn't see - it's extremely acidic and a brilliant shade of turquoise blue (if you turn on satellite view for this post you should see it), but obviously it was dark and cloudy so we couldn't see it. Once we'd been down there for about 15 minutes we couldn't stand it any longer - even with the gas masks breathing was painful, and our eyes were stinging badly from the sulphur, so we set about climbing back up the caldera rim.

Strangely enough the climb was actually easier than the descent, since you didn't have to worry as much about slipping on a rock and tumbling a hundred metres down (oh yeah I should have mentioned that the trail was generally less than 2m wide with a "robust" drop on one side, and absolutely no handrails or fences). We climbed almost halfway out of the caldera before stopping for a break, and I remember looking back and being amazed at how far we'd climbed.

The last half was tougher as the rocks were a bit higher and the traffic slightly thicker (still many miners around) so I went a bit slower, but by 5:45 am we were back at the crater rim overlook and pausing for a well-deserved drink. It was here that I noticed the clouds about growing slightly lighter - the sun was finally coming up. If it was a clear day we would've had a good view of the sunrise from this point, but as you're no doubt aware it wasn't, so we didn't.

The hike was pretty easy from this point as it was mostly downhill with varying degrees of steepness. Made the faux pas of offering our guide a biscuit when we paused at one point, but obviously he refused because it's Ramadan! I don't recall him eating before sunrise, so he's got 12 hours of hunger ahead of him, poor guy. We powered across the exposed ridge line which seemed even windier and wetter than it had before, but after that it was pretty smooth.

The light grew with every step, and our guide's mood got a lot better as well (he'd been a little short in places descending the caldera) - pointing out sights for us to photograph, cracking jokes about using the miners' carts as a quick way of getting to the bottom. Thankfully it doesn't take that long to hike 3km downhill, so by 7am we were back at the carpark, wet to the bone but very proud and elated of what we'd managed. Still lots of people climbing up at this point, probably for a look at the turquoise lake poor sods.

Our drivers were waiting for us, and just after we hopped in the car they asked us if we could give a lift to some French tourists whose driver had broken down - of course we said yes. They hadn't slept at all, since someone had told them there was a guest house in the trailhead parking area, which there definitely wasn't! They were essentially doing the same trip as us but in reverse order; they'd started in Jakarta and were working east towards Bali over a few weeks. Had a good chat with them to pass the time on the long drive back down to Banyuwangi.

Back at the hotel we rinsed off, had the greatest hot shower of all time (or certainly since Kilimanjaro at any rate), washed and rinsed all of our clothes and gear and then finally collapsed into bed around 10am. Time for a nap, and I'll diarise the rest of the day later.Read more