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Mount Karangetang is a magnificent Jurassic Park-looking volcano that dominates the remote island of Siau in North Sulawesi, Indonesia.

You can’t go anywhere on the small island of Siau without seeing this magnificent volcano and its twin smoking craters. If you’re lucky, you might even see it spewing molten lava and rock bombs at night, which it does quite often. :

In this guide, I’ll share my experience hiking the Karangetang Volcano in 2021 and give some tips if you’re planning to hike it yourself.

Is it safe?

First, let’s talk about safety.Karangetang is a highly active volcano, probably one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

Local guides are knowledgeable and any seismic activity is monitored by the Indonesian government, but there is still a high risk when climbing this mountain. It can erupt at any time.

You can climb to the top of Karangetang if you’re feeling extra crazy, but to be safe, most people only hike this mountain half way and look at the smoking craters from a distance (and even that is a bit risky).

Climbing any active volcano obviously carries some risk, but this one is unusually active, so proceed at your own risk.

My local guide, Dominic

I would highly recommend going with a local guide for this hike as the trail is difficult to navigate otherwise.

I did this hike with Dominic, a local guide on Siau Island with many years of experience in climbing Karangetang. His brother also joined us on the hike and helped clear the vegetation with a machete, and their dog also came along.

Dominique can be contacted on WhatsApp +62 853-9866-6999. I paid 600k rupiah for this trek even though it was during covid and prices are higher now.

He can also help arrange other tours and activities in the area, although we arranged them through Kalea Beach Resort where we stayed in Siau.

Mount Karangetang. What to expect?

• Starting the campaign

My guides and I started this hike very early because I wanted to be sure to get clear views of the volcano.

It turned out to be a good decision because as we got out of the tree line, some heavy clouds started rolling in, slowly covering the summit.

It was a 30 minute scooter ride to the trail on the south side of the volcano and then we started walking at 3:15am.

• In the jungle

Our progress was slow because of the crazy terrain, it was dark and the road was dense jungle.

There was extremely dense foliage as the trail was largely abandoned during Covid, which meant my guides had to hack it with a machete.Every step required another swing of the machete.

Along the way we saw many giant green centipedes which were harmless but also encountered a giant centipede which was more dangerous as they can bite.He got up in attack position and the guides told me that their stings really hurt.

Navigating the trail was complicated by the fact that it was so steep, muddy, and slippery. We have fallen a lot.

It was never dangerous in terms of landing, although I was a little worried that one of us would fall on my guide’s machete or something.

• Ancient lava field

After about 2.5 hours of hiking, we reached the old lava field below the peak, just in time for sunrise.

Climbing these lava rocks was no better than going through the jungle. Some of them were mossy and extremely slippery, and I fell down on the rocks a few times and got bloody even though I was wearing good grippy shoes.

For safety reasons, we stopped at the lava field. We were about two thirds of the way to the top and didn’t want to go any further as the volcano is notoriously active.

From here I spent about an hour with my drone checking out the summit. This volcano is really interesting because it has double smoking cones at the top. So cool.

By the time we started our descent at 7:25, the summit was already mostly covered in clouds.The descent was easier because the road was already cleared, but it still took 1 hour and 45 minutes.

If I had nine lives, I would like to climb to the top and see the craters up close.Although we stopped before the summit, Karangetang was a great hike and we got great views.

When to do the hike?

Siau Island has a tropical forest climate similar to Manado and the rest of North Sulawesi.

The driest months are July to October and these are the best months to trek Karangetang.

We visited Siau in June and the weather was good during our trip.

My travel guide for Siau Island

Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed this blog post about climbing the Karangetang volcano in Indonesia.

Don’t forget to check out my complete guide to Siau Island before you go.This place has some amazing beaches, tarsiers and other attractions.