Mount Merbabu stands approximately 3,145 meters above sea level.
The mountain is located in Central Java, with slopes stretching across several regencies and cities. There are several routes that can be used to reach its summit, one of which is Kopeng Thekelan.
For hikers who are used to taking that route, the journey to the summit is nothing particularly unfamiliar.
The same was true of the hiker this story happened to.
That day, he and six companions set out on an expedition to the summit of Mount Merbabu via the Kopeng Thekelan route.
Their journey went as usual. Nothing strange happened. Not until they reached Camp One.
The group decided to take a short rest.
While waiting for his friends, the hiker took a few photos. He enjoyed capturing every trip whenever he went hiking.
Before he realized it, quite a lot of time had passed.
His friends, feeling sufficiently rested, finally decided to continue the journey.
They told him they would go on ahead.
He nodded.
“Go ahead.”
At first, he wasn't worried. He just wanted to finish taking a few photos before catching up. But when he finally felt ready and started walking again, his group was nowhere to be seen.
He tried to quicken his pace.
The trail was still the same as he remembered. But the farther he walked, the quieter everything became. Then, partway along the route, he met a female hiker.
She was walking alone too.
After talking for a while, they learned that they were both headed for the summit. In the end, they decided to walk together.
The journey felt easier with someone to talk to.
They talked about hiking, the route they were taking, and various simple things along the way. There was nothing strange about the woman. Not until the weather began to change.
Fog descended.
The air grew colder, and the journey became much more difficult. They eventually decided to stop and spend the night at a location they considered reasonably safe.
The night passed.
The next morning, the hiker was still asleep when the woman woke up first.
“In that case, I'll head out first, okay?”
The woman asked permission to continue on. The hiker, still drowsy, merely nodded.
“Yeah. Be careful.”
The woman then left.
He went back to sleep.
Several hours later, the hiker finally woke up. The moment he opened his eyes, he was shocked. He turned out to be extremely close to the edge of a cliff.
He immediately got up and checked his belongings.
After making sure everything was safe, he packed up his gear and continued toward the summit.
Along the way, he saw something.
A backpack.
The bag was lying on the trail he was following and still appeared to be full of hiking gear.
He stopped.
There was no one around, and there were no signs that anyone had recently passed through. He immediately thought of the female hiker who had walked with him the day before.
“Maybe she left her bag behind.”
He slung the backpack over his shoulder.
His intention was simple. If the woman had already reached the summit, he would return it to her.
He continued on. Some time later, he successfully reached the summit.
There, he met up with his six friends again. The first thing he did was ask whether they had seen a female hiker.
His friends exchanged glances.
“What woman?”
“The one who was hiking alone. I met her on the way.”
They shook their heads.
“No one.”
The hiker began to grow confused. He told them that he had been walking with a woman since the previous day. But his friends said something that left him even more bewildered.
No female hiker had reached the summit with them. They hadn't seen or encountered anyone like that.
The hiker eventually figured that perhaps the woman had given up and decided to head back down. He didn't think much more about it.
The expedition continued.
He also carried the backpack he had found back down with him.
After all, he intended to return it.
There was an address belonging to the owner on part of the bag.
After the expedition was over, he and several members of his team tried to find the address.
Eventually, they found a house. An older woman opened the door.
“Excuse me, ma'am. Is this the home of—”
The hiker said the name of the backpack's owner. At once, the woman's expression changed. Her eyes fixed on the backpack the hiker was carrying.
There was no smile, no relief like that of someone who had just found a family member's belongings. Instead, there were tears.
The woman began to cry.
The hiker started to feel uncomfortable.
“Ma'am... this is your daughter's bag, right?”
The woman didn't answer right away. She only asked them to come inside, then led the hiker and several members of his team to the back of the house.
There was a gravestone there.
The hiker fell silent.
The name engraved on the gravestone was exactly the same as the name written on the backpack he was carrying. It was the name of the woman he had met on Mount Merbabu.
He stared at the gravestone for a long time.
He couldn't understand.
It was impossible.
The woman then explained that her daughter had been missing for three years.
Three years earlier, she had gone hiking on Mount Merbabu. But she had never returned. A search had been conducted. Every effort had been made to find her.
But her body was never found.
In the end, her family had made a gravestone in her memory.
The hiker continued standing there, not knowing what to say. Because the day before, he had walked alongside the woman whose name was written on that gravestone.
They had talked and walked side by side. The woman had even asked permission to go on ahead, and that morning, he had found her backpack abandoned on the hiking trail.
To this day, no one knows who the woman he met on Mount Merbabu really was.
Only one thing is known.
The woman had been declared missing for three years, and her body had never been found.
And yet, somehow...
“Three years after disappearing, she came back to walk toward the summit.”