On my 28th birthday, we climbed Mount Ijen to see rare blue flames and an incredible sunrise however it wasn’t quite what we were expecting. I’m going to go through all the highs, lows and the information you need to know about this experience.
Background on Mount Ijen
Mount Ijen is an active volcano near a little place called Banyuwangi which is located at the very east of Java, the main island of Indonesia. You can’t fly to Banyuwangi so you can either get to it from one of the other cities to the West, or Bali to the East. This volcano is famous for it’s blue flames that can only be seen during the night till sunrise. There are only two places on earth to go see this phenomenon that is caused by the sulphuric gases escaping the volcano and reacting with the oxygen at very high heat. Not only is this the place with the largest amount of blue flames but it also has the largest highly acidic caldera lake that is bright turquoise. They are incredible sights to see which is why it is now a very popular tourist attraction. However, this is an active volcano with miners working with huge plumes of sulphur so it is a very dangerous place that shouldn’t be underestimated. Although there hasn’t been a magma eruption since 1817 there have been fairly regular steam explosion eruptions with one happening in 2018. There are also earthquakes and tremors at Mount Ijen which have caused fatalities in the past. I am not trying to put people off going to Mount Ijen because I have been there myself but it is so important to know the dangers before going to any place so you can make the correct judgement for yourself.
BeforeYou Go
It is possible to book online via tour companies like Klook and Viator however many hostels and homestays offer tours at a much cheaper price. We stayed at Mango Tree Homestay in Banyuwangi, through booking.com, and we paid £13 each for the Ijen tour. They also helped us with our medical tests, which you now need to climb Mount Ijen as of 2024, and organised transport and our guides. All we had to do was to be ready to go at midnight. The medical isn’t intensive, but you are weighed and your blood pressure taken with some questions about heart health and lungs. There have been some unfortunate deaths due to heart and lung problems as this is very physically demanding. Take this as another warning of how challenging Mount Ijen is.
Although you are provided gas masks, goggles and torches I would recommend bringing your own torch as there isn’t always enough to go around and the more visibility you have the better. The goggles are also very worn so if you don’t fancy wearing them or want some you can see out of without scratches, then bring your own. We just took extra torches and we managed fine but there were times I struggled to see out of the goggles. Something I didn’t take but would advise is a walking pole. My guide actually broke a stick from a tree for me and it helped loads.
Please wear shoes with a good grip. This is the most important thing you can bring as the terrain is steep, muddy in parts, full of loose rocks and is uneven. If you slip you will definitely injure yourself and some people have fallen from the top. I’d also recommend wearing long pants or leggings. You could wear shorts but there are areas where I brushed along rocks that were sharp so you might end up with some scratches. It is also relatively cold when you start the journey with it being midnight and a high elevation so being covered up without having to wear a jacket would be a good idea.
I would definitely recommend eating and sleeping before setting off. We didn’t get much sleep but some sleep is better than none and you need the energy. This is a hike, so prepare for so, with drinks and snacks to have along the way.
The Hike
I vastly underestimated how hard this was going to be. I knew it was a volcano so it would be uphill but this is incredible.y steep nearly the whole way up. It was surprising on the way down to fully see how steep it was in the daylight with very big drops at the side of you that aren’t visible in the dark. You can get a ‘taxi’ up to the top but this taxi is a cart pulled by two men. Some people did do this option but I was very conflicted about it. There were points where I nearly gave up walking but I would have rather gone down and not done I then paid for someone to pull me up. This is however a well paying job for the locals so for them it is worth doing.
One of the reasons I nearly gave up was because of how claustrophobic I felt. I only saw a few people before going say that it was busy but nothing could have prepared me for the reality of it. Mount Ijen opens at 2 am and you have 3 hours to get up to the crater, go down to the flames and back up to catch the sunrise which sounds like plenty of time but we ended up spending a lot of time not moving because we had to wait for everyone to get through quite small passages. There is no limit to how many people can go up the volcano and I think it’s great that there is tourism for the area and the money that can come from it, but it isn’t safe for so many to go at once. I’ll talk more on this when I get to the part when we are in the crater. As it was so dark and steep every time I looked up all I saw was a sea of head torches, feeling like they were on top of me with no end in sight. I hadn’t considered myself to be claustrophobic before, it was always more of an overstimulated feeling rather than trapped but this was intense. It was obviously physically hard but combined with the claustrophobia I was close to a panic attack. Luckily one of our guides, Mr. Ali stayed with us and told me we weren’t in a rush so I would set myself small goals based on what I could see and I would turn around to face away from the hill as I caught myself. It was a great start to my birthday.
It does eventually flatten out a bit and then we were guided to the start of the descent into the crater. And this is where it actually gets dangerous and I was glad I couldn’t see very far when we went down because I think even if you didn’t have a fear of heights it would have made your legs wobble a bit. This is when the amount of people gets very dangerous. There isn’t really a system to it so it’s single file down a winding ‘path’ ( I use that term very loosely) which has loose rocks and big steps. Then about halfway down people started coming back up on the same path which meant a lot of stopping to let people past but the people behind would still try to come down causing more blockages and as I said, you can’t actually see the drop that’s next to you that leads straight down into an acidic lake. I’m really not trying to put people off, I promise, but it isn’t for the faint-hearted.
Mr Ali held my hand all the way down and thankfully guided us to quieter areas so we could catch up with our group. It would be easier to climb down without the scratched goggles but without those the plumes of sulphur can be debilitating. And once at the bottom even the gas masks didn’t help too much. As soon as we got to the bottom it felt very chaotic. It was hard to see and breathe from the Sulphur, I had to hold my breath when the plumes directions changed, and it was so busy. When we stood waiting to see the blue flames I nearly fell because I had a rock behind my legs and everyone moved towards me and knocked me off balance which isn’t difficult to happen down there. We did see the blue flames briefly but as everyone is in a rush to get back up for the sunrise you have a small window to see it, get a picture and move out of the way. We were told by someone else in our group, who got down before us, that he had a great view of the flames when he crouched on the ground to be under the sulphur clouds and he had a little more time to spend there.
The climb back up wasn’t difficult because you are physically crawling up rocks at points, but because of the amount of people coming down and pushing past you to get up quickly. Luckily our guide was very experienced and was able to take us to quiet areas to the side of the queue and find the other routes to take up so we had moments away from other people. He was also helping other groups get up and down by showing them where to go and holding their hands down whilst stopping other people pushing so we felt very safe following him.
He took us to an area where a miner was filling his basket up to start going up himself. The baskets are very heavy and not all of these men have the luxury of gas masks and goggles. Sulphur mining like this is actually rare now as it can be produced by man rather than naturally like at Ijen. It is dangerous work that pays well for this area so they continue to do it, so if you go I would urge you to make sure you give them room to do their job and not get in their way, as much as possible. You can also see in the photo below the amount of people also climbing the volcano.
Climbing back up is not a place to rush. As incredible as it would be to see the full sunrise it still looks incredible at any time you are at the top. There was a group whose guide was actually squeezing around people and then still getting stuck in places causing even more traffic. We ended up going on a different path where we had to carefully get around a little hut where Ash nearly fell as his foot got caught on the plastic sheet that covered the hut. It was a scary moment. So take it slow. The sunrise isn’t worth falling into an acidic lake for.
The Summit and Descent
The path here is flatter and wider and by the time you reach the final leg of the journey it is starting to get light so it’s nearly all plain sailing. It was here that I felt super proud of us for getting to the top and the sunrise was beautiful. You could see everywhere you had just walked and how blue the lake was. The plumes of sulphur poured over the rim of the volcano and the clouds were creeping in around the surrounding hills. It was a glorious day and we could see so far. There’s lots of bushes and trees around the edge that have no leaves that create a dramatic feature to your photos. But I must still warn you that it is a steep drop and there have been people who have posed for photos and lost their footing here and tragically fallen into the crater and died. So get your photos, take in the sunrise and be safe, surrounded by everyone who is also feeling so accomplished and grateful for this opportunity. At this point I put my jacket back on because it was a bit breezy and got ready to head back down.
Going down is much quicker than going up. Ash was pretty much jogging down at one point because of the momentum. It is so crazy to see where you just walked and how steep it was. It is very nice knowing where the end point is and knowing we had a breakfast waiting for us back at the homestay. We also got to know our guides and fellow tourists better and they also told us a bit more about the volcano. There are quite a few stalls at the bottom where you can get some snacks and drinks but I’d recommend taking some with you for the journey. Our tour provided water, popcorn and a cake for us. Most of us had a snooze on the mini bus back and then we also slept once we were back at the homestay and treated ourselves to a big meal at Barrondust as a celebration for completing Ijen, and my birthday, which was delicious.
I understand that I may have come across slightly negative about my Mount Ijen experience but it is only because I don’t think there was enough people online talking about how dangerous it is. If you are a very experienced hiker and mountaineer then maybe you wouldn’t find this as challenging but even if you are, this is still a different challenge to hiking a regular mountain. There were many people we saw during the journey who were really struggling, whether it was due to fitness levels, the altitude, the sulphur, the rocky ground or like myself the crowdedness. I do hope there is a way they can manage the amount of tourists to the volcano, I would happily pay more money to compensate the loss of visitors if it meant the experience was safer but also for the safety of the locals who use this volcano for income.
I would still recommend this experience as long as the risks were carefully considered. I personally think the sunrise and the view of the volcano was better than the blue flames purely based on how much I was actually able to see in the crater compared to the summit. It is also important to check that the crater is open and if there’s been bad weather around the time you are going as some visitors have been unable to go into the crater because of immense amounts of sulphur and then been unable to good views from the top because of clouds. There is also no guarantee that there will be any blue flames at the bottom to see, sometimes there are huge flames and sometimes thy are very small. Research is key for this hike but I am so glad we did it and it’s an experience I will remember forever.
For more footage and information about our Ijen experience check out my Instagram and TikTok and Ash’s Instagram and YouTube.
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