profound bliss

This is the third of a series of posts, and I really hope will be the last, about ‘peculiar’ things that I have experienced in the mountains. So I am/was fond of climbing alone, but only in mountains that I already know the trail of, and which I label as ‘safe’ because of easy trails. Two mountains that I climb alone (and without a guide) were Maculot and Manabu Peak. I already blogged about what happened during my last Maculot climb which actually triggered my desire to write about my ‘peculiar’ experiences. You can also read about my Mt. Romelo experience here . This time, however, I’m gonna write about a very strange thing that happened to me in Manabu. I arrived at the jump off past 1:00pm of September 20, 2012. Based on previous Manabu climbs, I only needed at least three-and-a-half hours for a ‘round-trip’ (that doesn’t include the ‘summit time’) so I was sure I’d be back at the jump-off way before 6:00pm. It had just rained the previous night so the trail was wet and ...

It is one of those days when you're itching to go out and you don't have anyone to go out with because they're either in school or just plain busy. In my case, my climb buddy wasn't available that day when I was so in the mood for a dayhike. It was a Friday, August 19th, and life had been so good that I wanted to shed that extra energy I had in me the whole week; more so, I wanted to celebrate by doing something that I love best. Because the previous night proved futile in looking for someone to climb with, I woke up quite late the following morning. It was already around 9:30 AM when I logged in to Facebook and hoped to find a hiking buddy among my online friends... to no avail. But then I have done solo trips before. My first climbing experience was only with a guide up Mt. Romelo. So after feeding Princess, I packed my small backpack and got ready to leave. It's really a good thing when you already know what to bring. It makes packing very easy. I was in ...

Two weeks after climbing Mt. Batulao , my itchy feet couldn't wait to climb again. I helped K's parents in building a business which had a grand opening that week, and after all the pressure of finishing everything up in time, I decided to unwind a little. And what best way to unwind than to go out of town and climb a mountain? Well, at least for me. So I texted K two days after the opening day and invited him for a climb. Cool enough, he also has an itchy feet. So off we traveled to Sto. Tomas, Batangas for a Manabu Peak climb that morning of April 14th. It was both our first time to climb Mt. Malipunyo (where Manabu Peak is part of), and we both agreed that we wouldn't get a guide. Mountain climbing is an adventure in itself, but figuring out the trail on your own provides more thrill to the adventure. It's just a minor climb, anyway, and internet articles say the trail is pretty well-established so we figured it would be the best mountain of choice for those wh...