Nos despertamos temprano para ver el amanecer en la montaña.

In Spanish, many actions you do to yourself use a reflexive form. The nos (short for nosotros) shows that the subject and the object are the same people: “we wake ourselves up.” Without nos, despertamos could mean “we wake someone else up.”

• despertarse = “to wake up” (stop sleeping)
• levantarse = “to get up” (actually leave the bed)
In English they often translate both as “get up,” but Spanish distinguishes the moment of waking (despertarse) from the act of rising from bed (levantarse).

The nosotros form of many –ar verbs is identical in present and preterite. You need context or time markers:
• If you’re telling a past story (“Yesterday we woke up…”), it’s preterite.
• If you’re describing a habit (“We wake up every day…”), it’s present.
In isolation, context tells you which meaning applies.

• para + infinitive expresses purpose: “in order to see.”
• ver alone would lack a link to “why” you woke up early.
• a ver can colloquially introduce an action (“Let’s see…”), but it doesn’t clearly mean “in order to see.”

Here para means “in order to” or “so that.” It introduces the goal of waking up early: para ver el amanecer = “so that we could watch the sunrise.”

With the article el, amanecer is a noun meaning “the sunrise” or “the dawn.” If it were a verb (“to dawn”), you’d see forms like amaneció or amaneciendo, without el.

Yes. salida del sol literally means “sun’s rising,” and is a valid alternative. el amanecer is shorter and very common, but both express the same idea.

• en indicates location (“on/at the mountain”), which fits if you’re already there.
• a would indicate movement toward the mountain (“to the mountain”).
• Spanish usually requires the definite article with singular, specific places: en la montaña, even if in English we say “in mountains” without “the.”

Adverbs like temprano (early) typically follow the conjugated verb. You could also say Temprano nos despertamos…, but the given word order is more fluid and common in speech.