Lakbay Gala

After a year of hiatus, we're back to climbing. I admit I've gained weight for over a year of little to no exercise, and it has actually taken a toll on my health. Add to that the fact that I haven't been going out and never seeing what it's like outside during the light of day. Imagine what it did to my body, that I developed jaundice overnight, and had to go out in the peak of day just so I could at least acquire sunshine. I had to thank my health concern that it got us back to the mountains. It was a blessing in disguise or more appropriately a wake up call to me. So my partner suggested to go climbing again. Yes, what better way to get tons of sunshine is by hiking. My partner decided to go for an ultralight backpacking, so the week before we were watching how-to videos for light weight backpacking. We've chosen to cut off some of our essentials or change the way how we pack them. We have bought a large 8 x 10 waterproof tarp last year and it has been very...

As adventurers with a passion and appetite for challenges, we constantly try to push our skills and abilities to the limit to see how far it would take us. We were always planning of climbing the tallest mountains in the Philippines and eventually make it to Everest. But for now, we were planning of finishing all mountains in Rizal before moving on to mountains in nearby provinces.  And so we brewed up a plan for our first twin dayhike- Mt. Sembrano and Mt. Tagapo.  We left after lunch and headed to Tanay Market to buy supplies. We arrived at the jump off at 4pm- perfect for a night hike which is also a part of our challenge. We started the assault with heavy bags, and just as before we had to stop every once in a while to catch our breaths. After all the starts and stops we were able to summit and camp for the night.  Early in the morning after a few pandesal we headed out to Mt. Tagapo. We had to travel an hour from Tanay to Binangonan to reach Talim Island, th...

We have been doing this mountain climbing as a routine. We have been hiking weekly and not long after our return from Boracay, we made it to Mt. Sembrano with a former schoolmate and her son. She hasn't been climbing for a long time and so we suggested hiking instead of the regular drinking-and-chatting-hanging-out-activity. It was a coincidence that the Mountaineering Community has organized a 2 day National Mountain Cleanup Day so it was that our hike was in line with the activity. We joined and had our ID but we can't make it on time because of my work. The meetup was at Lucky Gold Plaza in Lifehomes. We had to travel 2 hours from Pasig to Tanay, and bought supplies when we got there. Our plan was to summit before the night falls, but we were frustrated. Mt. Sembrano was a CHALLENGE. From the drop off is already a steep assault. After the concrete pavement starts the rocky trail which will be encountered until a few meters to the summit. We started the hike at arou...