Since its not a secret in our office that I frequent mountains, I decided to organize a fun climb to mt. gulugod baboy in Anilao Batangas. The group is composed of newbies to beginner hikers. This is the first time that I will officialy be an EL (expedition lead). On the early parts of planning sixteen showed interest in the climb, on the day itself only half were actually joining.
DAY 1
We left the bus station in buendia lrt a bit late, we should be boarding our bus at 6:30AM, but for some circumtances that the cause is not our own we were delayed ( its a long story to tell). We arrived at diversion road of Batangas city at around 11:00am, its a good thing that after SLEX there is no/less traffic, even with the delay we are still on schedule. We took a jeep to mabini town proper and ate our lunch there. We decided to chartered the same jeep to philpan in anilao. This is the jump off.
The time is 12:30 and the sun is shining very hot at the jump off, its also very humid. After some preparations and last minute instructions we proceeded with our trek. Some of us had a hard time on the early parts of the trek, since the area is near the sea (anilao is a dive resort) the humidity has taken a big toll on the climbing condition. One of our companion even experience dizzyness, we just gave him some first aid and lessen his load. We distribute it to the rest of the group who are willing (his load is very heavy btw, another long story). We met some Loyala mountaineers along the way, there is also a place in the middle of the trek that servers halo-halo. Very resheshing.
At around 4:00PM we arrived at the campsite/summit. Its quite fast actually, I budgeted four hours for hour trek just to make sure but we arrived one hour early. To describe the summit, you will have a 360 degrees view of Batangas. The seas are everywhere and you can also have a view of Sepok and sumbrero island. The hill beside the summit is like the windows XP wallpaper, but my othere officemate said is more like a tellitubbies intro mtv.
After some rest and time spending at the summit, we set camp and started cooking. I under estimated the winds here, even though Im using a windscreen on my stove somehow the wind is still able to penetrate. This made our cooking a bit difficult. Worst my companion brought stainless pots and this is a no-no since stainless is less conductor of heat which will make the heat not to reach the top of the pot. And halfway to his cooking he ran out of gas. But I do not blame him, he just borrowed it from a friend. Luckily my cookset was able to cook our rice for dinner and only half of the fuel is consumed. For our viand we brought pre-cooked adobo which only needs less heating.
Temperature on my watch is just 23C, but wind is making it colder. Very nice to drink brandy when it very cold hehehe. After our socials we slept, the time is around 11pm.
DAY2
We woke up very early to see sunrise. But fog is everywhere (which lasted up to 10am). My fuel barely made it to cook our breakfast, thanks to good budgeting. After eating and resting and enjoying the mountain for a while we break camp, we took our last pictures of the summit and headed down. On our way we met some newbies going up being guided by beginner trekkers(my guess). Going down is much much easier but humidity is greater than yesterday. We arrived around 12pm, our plan is to go to Sepok island after our dinner. We made arrangements to hire a boat. While were eating is starter to rain very hard, I could only hope the people we met were ready for this. If not all of their things specially electronic device will be broken. As rain continue to pour, we decided to cancel our boat ride to the island. Safety is always first, there is always a next time anyway. The same jeepney we chartered yesterday will be the one to bring us back to the bus station, its a good thing I took his number yesterday. We arrived at the bus station at around 4PM and then headed back to manila.