Gunung Batur

The breeze was perfect; just strong enough to rustle the sentinel flags as we clambered over the lip of the rise. A few hundred metres away, sulphurous steam and smoke spewed jerkily out of a volcanic vent. We pulled our gear out of our backpacks, and prepared to jump — we were going to paraglide off the side of 1,700m Gunung Batur, Bali’s second highest volcano.

A few days earlier a group of us had got together near Jimbaran, a town on the southern pimple of Bali, to explore its potential for paragliding. It was September and the winds were gentle and consistent, and just right for flying off the massive cliffs between Timbis and Uluwatu.

We launched, laughed, and cruised a thousand feet above the ocean, swinging lazily over killer surf towards Uluwatu’s temples and marvelling at ordinary earthbound tourists fighting off predatory monkeys. Then we flew back down the coast and peeped naughtily in through the bedroom windows of the Nikko Hotel. It was so easy to fly along the cliffs we top landed multiple times, ate local snacks, then took off again, carrying passengers. It was brilliant but we wanted to see more of what Bali had to offer, so we set off for the hills.

On the way we stopped at Candi Dasa, where the jet black sands stored enough of the sun’s heat to create huge pockets of hot air. Bubbling off from the beach, they were big and strong enough to see myself and Adam soar almost one kilometre out to sea before chickening out and heading back towards land. It was surreal, but we still wanted more, bigger. We wanted to paraglide off a volcano, or bust.

As Gunung Agung, Bali’s biggest volcano, was a holy mountain and (as much as we could) we respected local beliefs, it didn’t feel right to scramble all over it. So we settled for the second highest cone — Gunung Batur. Batur is 1717m high and, we reasoned, still pretty high. It is the remnant of a massive super-strata volcano that last erupted in 1963 with the loss of only a thousand or so lives. That seemed quite volcanic enough for us.

We asked our local expert, John, if it was a good idea. He said it definitely was. We asked him if he could help us sort out getting to the volcano. He said he definitely could. He even found us a place to stay — then said he definitely wasn’t going to jump off Batur himself. Instead, he booked into a cosy Ubud homestead with several female members of the group. Nuff said.

After several hours drive through increasingly scary terrain, down into the lava-strewn mouth of the original volcano and across the floor of the 13km wide crater (biggest in the world, they claim), we arrived at what must have been the most bizarre hotel on Bali.

It had 200 rooms, all dripping with marble and gold fixtures, a huge foyer and dining rooms, spas and massage parlours to spare — and about ten guests. Almost completely deserted, bang in the middle of intimidatingly cataclysmic nowhere and uncharacteristically opulent even for Bali, it was dwarfed by the looming shadow of Batur.

Several hundred metres above, the summit and flanks of the volcano were hissing, stinking and smoking as we peered out from our rooms. Fiercely jagged lava fields and murky-looking crater-lake waters warned us that any botched landing could be painful — neither of them looked great options for landing a paraglider on/in. But we were committed, so set our alarm clocks to 3am, and checked our gear. Several times.

Setting out in pitch dark, we hunched over our paraglider backpacks in the back of a tiny bemo (minibus) that bounced us along a narrow road to the drop off point where the epic hike would begin. John had laid on some guides who kindly supplied us with boiled eggs and bread as energy food for the climb. They were fully equipped with professional climbing gear such as flip flops, woolly hats and sunglasses, and looked confidently nonchalant.

We swung our heavy packs onto our backs and set off up the almost 45degree slope. It was tough work; every now and again we would have to grab at a tussock of grass or a rock to steady ourselves and avoid tumbling backwards into the dark like drunken beetles. It was cold, misty and gloomy but we were sweating heavily with the effort. Some of us gave in and passed our packs to the guides who then skipped up the slope with the extra 20kg on their backs, flip flops flapping as they climbed and chatted.

Some two and a half hours later, just as the sun was breaking through the cloud layer way below us, we clambered up the final steps of the trail and out onto a small flat area, below one of the bigger volcanic vents. The view was incredible: it was like we could see forever over a vast mat of fluffy white clouds. And it felt as though the sun was rising from under our feet.

Gunung Agung towered above the clouds — and us — 20km away. A speck of an aircraft was as clear as a glinting fly as it came into land at Denpasar, 40km distant on the opposite side of the island. Below us, clear patches in the cloud gave glimpses of the crater lake, twisting cotton threads of village roads, and a quilt of paddy fields far below.

Up near the summit the air was clear and crisp, but the power of the sun was already strong. We knew that as soon as sunlight burnt off the clouds, it would quickly heat up the jet black lava fields below and bring on strong turbulence, blustery winds — and potential bad news for any paraglider pilots still in the air.

There was a rush to unpack our canopies, lay out the lines away from the knife-sharp lava spikes, and buckle into the harnesses. Colin was first off, running like a demon down the slope into the void. He made it off with a few accompanying gasps from the rest of us; his canopy inflated fully only at the last minute. If it hadn’t, he would have crashed uncontrollably down that jagged slope until something snagged on the flesh-hungry lava.

After he had started breathing again, he settled into his harness and cruised successfully out from the slope. There was a rush to go next. Our wind dummy had shown us it could be done without crashing and burning (or bleeding) in the process, so it was time to go.

Taking off from Gunung Batur really was something special; it definitely was a shit or bust affair. You did it right first time, or you gave up and walked down (more likely limped or were carried, oozing blood, back down). But everybody made it OK. And as soon as we were flying and clear of the hill, every pilot turned in their harness, looking backwards over the launch site to where the volcano was still belching and burping smoke into the early morning air —air that they were now flying in. Amazing.

The rest of the flight down was something of an anticlimax. Because of our caution about potential turbulence, we all took off quickly, which meant there was virtually no lift from the cool, cloud-damped slopes. It was just a straight glide down the flanks of the mountain to the edge of the lake. About 15 minutes after takeoff we all landed on a flat patch by the side of the road, to be collected by our bemo.

We gathered in a little group, congratulated each other and looked back up towards the still smoking vents. We tried to make out if anybody was still up there, but we couldn’t see anybody — it was too high and too far away.

We felt very good: Flying off a volcano, tick.

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