Gunung Ungaran

August 4, 2023

2050m

Java, Indonesia

Gn. Ungaran boasts over 1300 m prominence immediately to the south of the Semarang urban areas. This is a very popular objective among the locals with several trails running to the top from multiple sides. The shortest option seems to be from the SW via the trail called “Perantunan” and the trail is well labelled on Gaia map. This is not the route that Rob Woodall took in 2020, but I dug out the details and decided to take this shorter route, even without a GPX track to follow. There are multiple summits on this massif but only the highest, Puncak Botak boasts over 100 m prominence, so we weren’t interested in the other add-on bumps. Adam booked an expensive hotel only a few kilometers from the trail-head and this hotel served well as our “basecamp”.

It wasn’t very clear if the actual trail-head could be reached by car so we made a scouting trip in the previous evening. The answer was negative. Our driver helped us to secure two ojeks and they promised to come grabbing us at 7:30 am from our hotel. This hotel served a fancy buffet breakfast at 7 am so the timing was excellent. It would be nicer to start a few hours earlier, but then we would miss out the breakfast. For us having a luxurious breakfast was more attractive than beating the heat. When 7:30 am came the ojek riders did not come. By 7:45 am I started to talk to the security guard and also texted our driver to come back, and they together managed to find two ojeks at the last minute. There was only half an hour of extra waiting and the deal was actually a little bit cheaper, so we didn’t complain. The “road” to the trail-head was actually entirely paved, but was too narrow for vehicular traffics. There’s a “basecamp” at the trail-head so we paid our entrance fee. They did not force us to hire a guide, which was great.

Obtaining our permit at the park’s entrance

Gn. Ungaran (Puncak Botak) via Perantunan Route. GPX DL

This is a steep way to reach the summit. After passing the first two camps the trail became a master of wooden staircases. They weren’t concrete nor made of stones, but were still difficult on the knees, especially for the descent a few hours later. After the 4th “pos”/camp we followed the trail traversing onto some open grassy slopes and we would have open views from here all the way to the summit. I did not do much digging about the views from this peak and this turned out to be much more satisfactory than anticipated. We quickly made our way to the southern sub-summit known as Puncak Bondolan but this “peak” lacks enough prominence to qualify as an independent summit, so we did not linger. There’s one local group camping nearby and they offered us some free fruits. We were still very full from the buffet breakfast so I replied that we would take the offer on the descent.

Adam starting the hike. It was already smoking hot, unfortunately…

The bump ahead isn’t the summit. The summit is far behind and much taller

As you can see, most of the ascent was on staircases

Traversing out of the forest onto grassy slopes

Plodding up open grassy slopes towards Puncak Bondolan

Gn. Merbabu dominates the southern skyline

Our first view of Gunung Sumbing and Gunung Sindoro in this trip

Multiple groups were resting and camping on Puncak Bondolan

This cat is considerably larger than the previous ones

The traverse to the true summit “Puncak Botak” was very scenic and did not involve as much undulating terrain as I thought. There were some up-and-downs, but nothing major. Upon arriving at the summit we quickly realized the next bump to the NE might actually be higher, but there’s a deep notch separating the two. We looked more closely and actually found a path descending into the saddle, and this path eventually led us to the farther summit. From visual inspection I would say this less-frequently visited NE summit should be slightly higher, but without accurate surveying equipment it’s not possible to make that statement. In any case we visited both, so we were safe.

Starting the summit ridge traverse towards Puncak Botak (true summit)

Another view towards Gn. Sumbing and Gn. Sindoro

Adam plodding up the summit ridge, with one group descending ahead

The two summit contenders are both visible in this picture

A view into the vegetated crater, with Sumbing and Sindoro behind

Gunung Merbabu with Gunung Merapi poking behind its shoulder

Gunung Sumbing, one of the highest volcanoes in Java

Adam arriving at this not-so-often visited farther summit

Me on the farther (probably true) summit of Gn. Ungaran

This is Puncak Banteng Raiders, the NE sub-summit of Ungaran massif

Adam and I back to the summit of Gn. Ungaran with that sign

After taking in enough of the views we quickly made our way back across the summit ridge down to Puncak Bondolan. The other group was still in their tent so we took the fruit offer, and it was great. We then made a single dash down the steep trail back to the parking lot without taking any break. My knees were not particularly happy but whatever. It was fairly straightforward to find two ojek rides at the park’s entrance, for the same price, so in short time we were back to the hotel. We got back at 11 am and that meant we had an extra hour before the check-out time. This further meant I got to take a well-deserved hot shower, and transfer all of the photos to the computer.