Nature-ral High

Nature-ral High
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail

July 26, 2012

Mt. Irid


   Saturday July 21, 10:00am. I should be doing a dayhike today. But due to severe moonsoon rains here in Manila, (raining for 3 days now) we had to cancel our plans. But as they say, a person always find something to do, so here I am writing a long overdue blog on my hike to Mt. Irid. 
   I am not really fan of 'birthday climbs', I believe that celebrations should be left in the city were the hust and bust of our daily lives resides. Mountains are for places were you want to relax, be with nature. Where we can forget our day to day grinds for a while..... But when a friend invited me, its an invitation I can't refuse. Another plus was  friend (whos is climbing hiatus) was also going.


   Mt. Irid is located in the boundaries of Rizal province. We traveled going to Sta. Inez,Rizal  on a rented jeep very early morning, this includes passing by several rivers and bumpy roads. I think the travel time up  to the jump-off takes around 2 hours (from Cubao). From the jump-off its a flat trek up to the base of the mountain.
 If I counted correctly, we passed by seven rivers. The rivers was not that high though that I managed not to get my feet wet. I recall we made a turn on the 6th river crossing to get to a waterfall. To my surprise the water fall was very pristine. We took a dip before continuing our hike. 
   We reach the mountain basecamp almost mid afternoon. The celebrant cooked the planned birthday feast. We had our sumptous dinner a few drinks then went to bed. 
   The next day was the summit assault. We just brought our assault bag and some rations. As expected the trail and the mountain itself is very pristine. Proof was the trail, can be hardly seen and if your not that experienced, a hiker can easily get lost. There are lots of rocks that look like walls where trees had grown. There were also part that trails ends, and you need to find the connecting part. A hiker sometimes needs to enter cracks on the walls/rocks. The summit was sort of  diffrent. It has large clearing with large chunks of stones. Other mountains can be seen in the area, since I think Mt. Irid is already located on the boundary of the Sierra Madre Mountain range. 
   I really enjoyed this climb, met some long lost (into hiking) friends. Though it rained when we went down, and had a bit of flash flooding (considering there were seven river crossings). My first birthday climb turned out okay. 


The Trail


River Crossing


Mt. Irid


Kinabuan Falls
Leech (take note its not Limatik)


Birthday Feast! (photo c/o MikeB)


Tukdan Banoi view from BaseCamp, and Yes its climbable




A bird on the way to the summit




Giant Pitcher Plants


Summit!




Mountains in the surrounding
Height in MASL c/o Ritchie 







FlashFlood


P.S. Barry, This is my last  backlog entry. I plan to create the Ugu climb next. :D