"It was my first summit, never realized that it would be a hobby that I mostly adore. At that time, I hiked this mountain without proper gear at all, absolutely no knowledge of mountaineering. Just put on my most comfortable outfit and go out there. Luckily I was guided by my experienced friend, and with his help I got to my first summit which is freaking awesome. Nothing beats the feeling of your first summit. Even though I hike more beautiful peak later on, the feeling still can't beat this one. Mt. Merapi is the most active volcano in my country (Indonesia). Three quarter of the hike was full of vegatation with dusty pathway, but the last quarter was full of gravels. We start the hike from New Selo route, 8 hours from there to reach the camp site "Pasar Bubrah". You can actually hike it in 4-5 hours, but because of we full of newbies it became really slow. The hike is not so hard, we went there with 2 girls in our team and they reached the camp site just fine (our team consist of 8 people). We build our tent under heavy rain at Pasar Bubrah, luckily the rain stopped on early morning. Everyone got exhausted (we really a bunch of weaklings at that time) and got up late, resulting..." — Raymond • Jan 10, 2012