Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 16, 2023

2209m

Java, Indonesia

Bukit Tunggul, or Bukittunggul is the highest peak in the area north of Bandung in West Java, boasting over 1300 m prominence. This isn’t an “ultra” but is a fairly straightforward ascent. Adam and I had budged some extra days so it made sense to also grab these easy “P1000m” objectives. The entire mountain is forested and there’s no view whatsoever from the summit. This isn’t a very popular objective but the trail is in decent quality. With only 750 m elevation gain from the trail-head and no complication with ojeks our plan was to use Bukit Tunggul to break the otherwise long drive from Cikuray to Karang. Thank to the Independence Day madness the primary objective in West Java, namely Gunung Pangrango is closed for the week, so we must adjust the sequence of the remaining peaks to take in account of that. The solution was to head all the way west after Cikuray to climb Karang, and then move back eastwards.

Adam found a fancy hotel in Lembang about 10 km west of Bukit Tunggul to serve as the “basecamp” for this mountain. We had learnt the West Java’s humidity and temperatures and to beat the heat we must start hiking at the first light at the latest. I also planned to wear shorts but I would carry the long pants in case the trail became bushy. The entire mountain is covered in thick canopy so we could have left the sun protections in the hotel. Our plan was to get back to the hotel at least 1 hour before the check-out time (noon) for a much-needed shower. The drive from here to Karang would then take 7 hours, possibly more if the traffic was bad. We timed ourselves well and arrived at the trail-head village just when head-lamps were no longer required. There’s even a registration on this unofficial trail, but it was empty when we arrived. Despite the lack of a beefy vehicle our driver managed to get a short ways up the dirt road and parked a few hundred (horizonal) meters higher than Rob Woodall’s starting point.

Adam and I wasted no time and immediately started the hiking. The bottom of the route was confusing. We ended up missing the hiker’s trail right off the bat by walking up the road, and that led us into some impressive jungle tunnels created by ojek traffics. We knew we were slightly off-route, but the trails eventually converged. Passing “Pos 1” the trail branched out again and we followed one of Adam’s GPX tracks onto some smaller and overgrown trails. This was the worst part of the route. Rob Woodall’s track was a ways to the north but he did mention getting off-route or taking a short-cut somewhere. Eventually all of the tracks merged together and the trail became a wide path again. The final 400 m grunt onto the summit involved a lot of scrambling on tree roots and muddy steps, but nothing’s worth noting after the previous day’s Cikuray ascent. The summit was as expected, forested with nothing to see.

Due to the lack of views this ascent felt like dumpster-diving. I ended up taking only 40 photos for the entire trip and that’s a new low record. Due to the long drive ahead we immediately started the descent, and dashed down to the trail-head in a single shot. We did find the better path and avoided that ojek tunnel section. The trail-head registration has opened, so we paid our belated entrance fees. We ended up stopping at a local Warung for breakfast, and got back to the hotel at 10 am. They then told us the laundry wasn’t ready, so I took a shower and wrote the trip report.