I hear about Bali’s holy mountain while on an earlier spiritual quest in Sanur involving incalculable bottles of Bintang and a local poolhall—enlightening me for exactly six hours. The rapture of Mt. Agung lasts much longer.
Some of the mountain’s lasting impression is pure scale—all 3031 vertical, volcanic metres of it. Even while travelling down the coast towards Amed in preceding weeks, Mt. Agung was impossible not to encounter. It dwarfed everything else in the landscape—a huge cape of shadow stretched between land and sky.
But it’s not all about raw volume—a lot of what makes this hike so memorable is the unique, noctural nature of the journey. I wait—as per street vended travel instructions—outside my hotel at around 11pm. The bus swerves through a handful of tourist districts and eventually into the inky humidity of the mountains until we reach the Besakih temple trailhead. Wayan, our bus driver passes us on to our guide—also Wayan. You will read here and there that it’s possible to do this walk without a guide. And it is, in the same general way it’s possible to take a long bath in a crocodile farm—possible, but greatly unadvisable for a number of reasons.
The first reason is that, especially towards the top section of the walk, the path dissolves into volcanic shale and a scramble of increasingly vertical rock. The guides know the best way, and will help you find it. The second is that this hike is long and steep—an unremittent, five-hour ascent. It’s good practice to have someone to look out for you. And thirdly, this is a reliable income source for local people who are allowing tourists to climb one of the most sacred sites in Bali—a fragment of Mount Meru, the very axiom of the universe, according to some Balinese stories.
The other things you’ll need to ensure the walk is unforgettable in all the right ways are: a torch (preferably head torch), food (it’s six hours up and more than half that coming down), warm clothing (don’t let the heat fool you, it’s 3 kms above sea level and freezing on the summit), water (lots of it, even at night it’s an unrelenting uphill through tropical-grade heat on the lower slopes) and a rain jacket (depending on time of year).
The whole reason the walk begins at 1:30am—after groups are assembled, incense is lit and offerings are made to the silhouette of Besakih temple—is to meet the rising sun at the summit of Mt. Agung. And is it ever worth it. Watching the distant circuitry of city night fall away to reveal reefs of clouds impaled by mountains, watching an oceanic shadow begin to drape from Agung over the land as far as the naked eye can see—these are what make hardship of the early morning climb instantly forgotten.
And all of the colossal craters and teeming jungle that was blotted out on the ascent is now visible. Until finally you’re back at Besakih temple, no longer a silhouette, but wrapped in flags and forest.
This isn’t strictly an easy hike. It’s a five hour ascent—often aggressively up, and about three hours down. The last portion towards the summit becomes more of a climb/scramble than a hike. It won’t be as painful the next day as a quest involving Bintangs and poolhalls, but you will feel it.
by Paul C Cumming
