Rinjani Trekking Routes in 2026: All Six Compared, and Which Are Actually Open

Mount Rinjani has six official trekking routes: Sembalun, Senaru, Torean, Aik Berik, Timbanuh and Tetebatu. Only Sembalun, Senaru and Torean reach the 3,726 m summit. After the September 2026 fires, Sembalun is the route to plan around. GumilangTour runs private guided Rinjani treks from Lombok, quoted after enquiry.

Table of Contents

• Rinjani has six official routes, not two
  • The two classes, and why they exist
• Route by route
  • Sembalun — the summit route
  • Senaru — the forest route
  • Torean — the valley and lake route
  • Aik Berik — the second summit
  • Timbanuh and Tetebatu — the southern short routes
• Live status: what the September 2026 fire closed
• The decision table
• What your route choice does to the permit bill
• The 2026 rules that apply on every route
• A worked 3D/2N on Sembalun
• Choosing, in one line each

Rinjani has six official routes, not two

Almost every trip plan for Mount Rinjani is built as though the mountain had two front doors. It has six. The park authority — Balai Taman Nasional Gunung Rinjani, usually shortened to TNGR — names all six in its own notices: Senaru, Torean, Sembalun, Timbanuh, Tetebatu and Aik Berik.

The number matters for a reason that has nothing to do with scenery. Only three of the six are built to put you on the 3,726 m summit. The other three lead somewhere else entirely — a secondary peak, a highland clearing, a forest rim. Book one of them expecting a summit morning and you have not booked a harder or easier version of the same trek. You have booked a different mountain.

The two classes, and why they exist

In November 2025 the Ministry of Forestry reclassified Indonesia's nature-tourism sites under Peraturan Menteri Kehutanan No. 17 Tahun 2025, and Rinjani's routes each moved up a class. TNGR applied the new tariffs from 3 November 2025:

• Class 1 — Sembalun, Senaru, Torean (upgraded from class 2)
• Class 2 — Aik Berik, Tetebatu, Timbanuh (upgraded from class 3)

That split is the most useful thing on this page, because the park has already done your triage for you. The class-1 three are the summit-capable routes with the staffed gates, the porter networks and the search-and-rescue attention. The class-2 three are quieter, cheaper, and do not deliver the trek most people have in mind when they say "Rinjani".

Route by route

Sembalun — the summit route

The eastern approach, and the one used for the overwhelming majority of guided summit treks. You cross an open savanna valley on day one, camp on the crater rim at around 2,600 m, and start for the summit somewhere around 2am. Its advantage is the gradient profile: the punishing climb is broken across two distinct sections rather than delivered as one continuous forest ascent, which is why it is the standard choice for a first summit attempt. Its disadvantage is exposure — almost no shade on day one.

Senaru — the forest route

The northern approach, through dense montane forest. Shadier and cooler than Sembalun, and the traditional descent for the classic lake-and-summit loop. As a summit ascent it is the harder of the two: a long, relentless, root-laden climb with far fewer natural rest points. Most guided treks run up Sembalun, down Senaru for exactly this reason, and our Rinjani 3D/2N trek is built that way.

Torean — the valley and lake route

The most interesting route on the mountain, and the least understood. Torean was a Sasak pilgrimage path to Segara Anak, the crater lake, long before it was a trekking route. It follows the Kokok Putih river up a valley of waterfalls and hot springs and arrives at the lake without crossing a crater rim at all.

That single geographic fact is what people miss. Every other route reaches the lake by climbing over the rim and dropping down the inside wall. Torean walks in through the back. It is therefore the fastest way to the lake and the hot springs — and the worst way to the summit, because you still have to climb out of the caldera afterwards.

Aik Berik — the second summit

Starts from Aik Berik village on the southern flank and leads to Pelawangan Aik Berik and on toward Puncak Sangkareang, a secondary peak. It does not deliver the main summit. Genuinely beautiful, genuinely quiet, and genuinely not what someone who has told their family they are climbing Rinjani has in mind.

Timbanuh and Tetebatu — the southern short routes

Both southern, both class 2, both shorter, both ending short of the standard summit approach. They suit trekkers who want a high-altitude night and a sunrise without a summit push, and they are the two routes where you can realistically expect to see almost nobody. Confirm the current end point of each with TNGR directly before you commit — these two carry the least published information and change the most.

Live status: what the September 2026 fire closed

Two of Mount Rinjani's six routes are currently shut: Torean has been closed since 23 September 2026 and Senaru since 26 September 2026, both because of a forest fire in the Torean resort area. Sembalun is open and is the route to plan around. This is the part no guide written six months ago can tell you, and it is the part that decides a September-to-December trek.

The fire broke out at Bukit Setampol, in the Torean resort area, on the evening of 22 September 2026. TNGR closed the Torean route from 23 September 2026, indefinitely. The fire then spread toward Bukit Sangkareang and Pelawangan Senaru, and the Senaru route was closed from 26 September 2026. Reported affected area passed 700 hectares within days and kept growing. As of 28 September 2026 TNGR was still posting active fire-management updates.

As things stand, Sembalun is the route to plan around. (Checked September 2026 — this is a live situation, so re-check before you book.)

Two things follow, and both are worth knowing before you pay anyone anything.

First: a closure does not cancel your trek, it redirects it. TNGR's published remedy for both closures was the same — holders of e-tickets for the closed route may reschedule, or shift their entry and exit to another route. A Senaru ticket can be re-routed through Sembalun. That is a far better outcome than a refund argument, and it is the single most important thing to understand about booking Rinjani in a fire year.

Second, and this inverts the advice you will read everywhere else: on Rinjani the dry season is the fire season. The official trekking season runs April to December precisely because the wet months are unsafe — TNGR closes the whole mountain from 1 January to 31 March each year for hydrometeorological risk and ecosystem recovery. But the same dryness that makes August through October pleasant to walk in is what makes the mountain burn. TNGR had already moved the park to a limited opening from 1 September 2026 as a fire-prevention measure, and suspended new online bookings through the eRinjani app from that date, honouring only reservations already paid. So the "best weather" window and the "most likely to be closed" window are the same window. Plan the shoulder of it rather than the middle, and never build a trip where the trek has no slack day behind it.

The decision table

What your route choice does to the permit bill

Mount Rinjani's entrance tariff is charged per climbing day, not once per trek — so a four-day trek costs four days of entry fees. This is the detail that is wrong on most pages you will read, and it costs people real money.

TNGR's own tariff notice makes this explicit in the way it handles extra days — additional climbing days are charged at the new rate. So your permit cost is the daily rate multiplied by the number of days you are inside the park.

Tariffs from 3 November 2025 under Permenhut 17/2025 (checked September 2026):

Worked through: a foreign trekker on a 4D/3N Sembalun itinerary pays four days of class-1 entry — around Rp1,000,000 in park fees alone, not the Rp250,000 most blogs quote. On a 2D/1N the same line item is around Rp500,000. An Indonesian trekker doing 3D/2N via Sembalun across a weekend pays roughly 3 × Rp75,000.

This also exposes a trap worth naming. Aik Berik is Rp50,000 a day cheaper for foreign visitors — but it does not reach the summit. Choosing a class-2 route to save on permits does not buy you a discount on Rinjani; it buys you a different mountain. If budget is the constraint, shorten the itinerary on a class-1 route instead of switching to a class-2 route. Our breakdown of what a Rinjani trek costs covers how the rest of the bill behaves.

The 2026 rules that apply on every route

Four rules apply on all six Rinjani routes regardless of which you pick: the mountain is graded Grade IV, insurance covering helicopter evacuation is mandatory, guides must be certified and registered with the Ministry of Forestry, and there is a health check the day before you climb. All four have tightened considerably.

Rinjani is graded Grade IV. The Ministry of Forestry's national grading framework runs II to V — Grade II being entry-level peaks, Grade V expert-only. Rinjani sits at Grade IV, advanced, and the framework expects trekkers on Grade IV mountains to show prior experience on lower-graded peaks. No formal certification system exists yet, so proof is still handled manually — photographs or previous climbing certificates. Notably, there is no published minimum age; the gate is demonstrated competence, not a birthday — which cuts both ways, and matters as much for a fit 14-year-old as for a trekker in their sixties.

Insurance is mandatory. A premium insurance requirement covering helicopter evacuation has applied to trekkers since 1 October 2025. TNGR also publishes its own accident-cover product, which runs from gate entry to gate exit. Check what has actually been bought on your behalf, and check whether your own travel policy excludes trekking above 3,000 m — many do, and Rinjani's summit is well above that line.

Guides must be certified and registered with the Ministry of Forestry, and a health and fitness check the day before the climb is part of the current standard operating procedure. If you want an honest read on whether you are ready, our assessment of Rinjani's difficulty is the place to start.

A worked 3D/2N on Sembalun

What the standard summit trek actually looks like, so you can judge it against your own fitness:

• Day 1 — Sembalun gate registration and the fitness check, then roughly 6–7 hours across the savanna and up the switchbacks known locally as the three hills, to the crater rim camp at around 2,600 m. Hot, exposed, deceptively long.
• Day 2 — Summit start around 2am. Roughly 3–4 hours up, the last stretch on loose volcanic scree where you lose most of a step to every step you take. Back down to camp, then a steep descent inside the caldera to Segara Anak and the hot springs, and a second night at the lake.
• Day 3 — Climb back out of the caldera to the Senaru rim, then the long forest descent to the gate. In a year when Senaru is closed this day gets re-routed — which is exactly why you ask what the alternate looks like before you commit.

The honest verdict: day 2 is the hardest single day, but day 3 is where most people are surprised. Climbing out of the caldera on tired legs after a summit night is the section that gets underestimated. Train for descent, not just ascent — and note that the best month to trek now has to be read against the closure windows above, not just the rainfall charts.

Choosing, in one line each

• Summit, first time, want the best odds — Sembalun. Nothing else competes.
• Summit, want the classic loop — up Sembalun, down Senaru, once Senaru reopens. Compared directly in Sembalun vs Senaru.
• Lake and hot springs, not bothered about the summit — Torean, once it reopens. Fastest route in.
• Altitude and solitude, no summit — Aik Berik, Timbanuh or Tetebatu.
• Not sure you want a multi-day trek at all — the crater rim trek and the 2D/1N Rinjani summit trek are shorter commitments, and the rest of the island sits on our Lombok tours page.