For my first trip of 2012, I joined HLGG for a weekend day hike to Mt. Batulao last January. That was my 3rd Mt. Batulao climb and I thought I already knew the typical Batulao crowd until I came across that Japanese woman below.
Hardcore Mountaineering Mama from Liquid Druid on Vimeo. Continue reading
WHAT TO BRING
I’ve always said I that had a score to settle with Mt. Batulao. This is because the first time I went there a few years back, I wasn’t able to conquer its summit. I was then with a mountaineering group composed of former co-employees. We intended to camp overnight and attack the summit early the next day but the previous night’s stormy conditions made the trail to the summit exceedingly difficult and so the climb was aborted barely halfway through the entire trail. Continue reading
Ang galing talaga ng mga kikay mountaineers. Maghapon sa bundok pero di bakat ang Jabar. Their shirts must be made of girlfriend material.—
R. Luis Flores (@liquiddruid) August 20, 2011
I’ll be blogging about my Mt. Batulao solo climb soon. Stay tuned!
TAAL VOLCANO
No one ever refers to Taal Volcano as Mt. Taal, possibly because it’s low elevation does not qualify for the “Mt.” appellation. Despite being considered the “smallest” volcano (and even this description is disputed by geologists) it is one of the country’s most active. It last erupted in 1977, and has erupted some 34-odd times since first being recorded in 1572. Continue reading
Quite different from what I expected, the descent was a lot harder than the ascent. It was probably a combination of a lot of factors, but the most prominent of which was exhaustion. There wasn’t any real rest from the night before, and before we knew it, we were on packing our bags for the trip back. Continue reading
(To continue…)
And all throughout, the rain became continuous. No, it wasn’t a spattering rain that made loud noises as it fell to the earth. This was very fine rain, which, coupled with the high wind speed, was almost like a spray. One moment you hear the wind whistling in your ears, the next moment your face is drenched with rainwater. Continue reading
Last August 2, I joined my office’s local mountaineering group for a minor climb at Mount Batulao (in the province of Batangas.) I should have been blogging about this weeks ago just after the trip, but some tech-related setbacks occurred that caused the delay.
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I’ve always preferred the mountains over the sea but I realized that over the past decade, I’ve been visiting beaches more frequently than the mountains. That, and the fact that I’ve haven’t left Metro Manila for the past 2 years made me sign up for the Batulao trip. It was quite exciting because my previous mountain-climbing experience was confined to informal climbs involving barely-challenging peaks (i.e. those that don’t even require backpacks and can be accomplished in a day.) This climb was an overnight one, which necessitated the bringing of food rations, tents and lots of tissues and wet wipes.
