Saturday, March 23, 2013

Mt. Pamitinan, Montalban Rizal

Mt Pamitinan: Not the highest mountain in the Philippines but far from the most forgiving
This was not the initial destination that we had in mind. We were supposed to go to Mt Romelo but then Kenji's GPS led us to a section of road that was unpaved. My car was so low that it could only negotiate paved roads. The bottom scraped pretty badly on one section of the road. And then for the first time since I've had him, Xander overheated. Upon closer inspection, his auxilliary fan gave out. That would've been ok if the sun wasn't in full scorch mode but on that day, you probably could've cooked an egg if you left it on the ground. Looking for alternate routes and waiting for the car to cool down ate a lot of time. Since it was already geting late, we decided to go to wawa instead which was closer (less than 2 hours away from manila).
 
Xander is usually a pretty reliable car but this was not his finest moment

This is the most difficult hike/climb i've done in my still very short stint as an outdoorsy person. Climbing the steep jagged rocks was actually the easy part. My rock climbing skills were quite sufficient for the climb. The difficult part, at least for me, was walking for more than an hour on a trail that consisted of nothing but inclines. There was no level ground at all. It was uphill all the way. If you're as heavy as I am, stamina's gonna dwindle very quickly. The entire climb lasted about 2-3 hours. (We had a lot of breaks. If you have more stamina, you can probably do it a lot faster)

 
During the start of the hike, I had to make more than a few stops to catch my breath. I was beginning to doubt if i was gonna make it to the top. At one point, fredda said "If it's too difficult for you, you don't have to go". My heart felt like it was gonna jump out of my chest but there was no way that i was gonna show her that I was weak. So I soldiered on for the preservation of my manly dignity. I got the hang of it eventually and it got progressively easier for me even if the trail actually got harder. (tip: if you're gonna scale this mountain, I would advice you to bring gloves and footwear with thick soles since the rocks are pretty jagged)


Group shot at the summit

In my previous hikes, I used to handle my own camera. I wanted to be able to take pictures whenever I wanted to. The downside of that is that I wasn't usually in the pictures that I took. This time I let Manong tour guide handle the camera almost the entire time. I have a lot more photos this time. This makes me happy. Not because i'm vain. But because (warning:very deep justification ahead) by looking at the pictures, it makes me realize how intimate I've become with nature. From a person who's never left the city just 2 months ago to someone who scales jagged rocks and wades through thick foliage with relative ease... ok it's also nice to have nice pictures

 
Alexander, conqueror of mountains. Mancode entry #2052: One must not climb a mountain without having at least one heroic picture of yourself







 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Question, is Mt. Pamitinan the same as Pamitinan Cave? Or are they in the same area?

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