Mts. Palay- Palay Range
(Mataas Na Gulod)
- Pico De Loro
Ternate, Cavite
Nov. 21- 22, 2009
Group: Singles for Christ
Pico De Loro had been capturing my attention since it was told me by someone and the feedbacks were so great that I immediately grabbed the chance to trek this mountain with the group Singles for Christ or better known as SFC to their clean up drive. From then, I invited my friend Lanie, from Ilocos, to join me on this climb.
We woke up so early at dawn of Nov. 21, 2009. We arrived in front of Heritage Hotel in Pasay to meet the members of SFC and other climbers. Though we left in Pasay too late according to our itinerary, I was a little bit surprise on the number of participants who joined the Pico De Loro climb. We were nearly 50 participants and we rented out a bus to Maragondon, Cavite at 5:30 A.M.
We arrived in Maragondon at around 8:00 A.M. From there, we took our breakfast and bought our packed lunch. We left Maragondon and headed to DENR Ternate, the jump-off for Pico De Loro. At the DENR Ternate, we registered and paid Php 20 per head. After coursing some short reminders to us and had a prayer, our group started to trek at 10:22 A.M.
During our trek, I noticed some trashes along the trail. But I liked the trail in Pico. It soothed me probably because it was covered by forest attributable to Mts. Palay- Palay range as protected area by DENR. Trekking was easy, cool and fun. We reached Basecamp 1 at around 12:00 noon, had our lunch and paid another Php 20 for registration (I wonder why climbers obliged to pay twice of same amount for registration for the same trail). At Basecamp 1, the environment was clean. Trash bags were there; could be attributed to trashes gathered along the trail or consummated in the Basecamp 1 itself. Usually, mountaineers left their trashes in the Basecamp 1 or in DENR so as to avoid messing up in the mountain.
Around 12:45, we left the Basecamp 1 and headed to campsite. There were parts of trail that can cause confusion to mountaineers and will end them up losing on the right track. For this, I remembered an advice from a MMS member, “when going up in Pico, just turn right and when going down, just turn left”. At one of the confusing forks, if a person will not keenly observed the sign boards, losing on the trail is possible. For that, going up to Pico, we followed the sign board and turned right. The other side, left side, will lead to the so-called Pico falls. The trail before the campsite was also confusing. If the left side will be followed, a trail leads to a bamboo place which was not established although this trail will end up in the campsite and view of Parrot’s Beak is visible. The other side, right side, leads to an established trail and will be able to reach the campsite in less than 15 minutes. In using this trail, a compost pit with a lot of trashes greeted us. At 2:57 P.M, we reached the campsite.
At the campsite, we indulged ourselves to roam around. Scenic views, those that I usually saw in movies and pictures, were the ones that made our trek rewarding. I really enjoyed the views; at that time, beauty defined what I’m seeing. Around 4:30, we trekked to the summit. If views in the campsite were beautiful, it was ten times at the summit. Awesome, amazing, beautiful, wonderful; maybe it was redundant but it simply defines the views in the summit of Pico.
At 6:00 P.M, we prepared for our dinner. Eggs with tomatoes, chicken- pork adobo were included in the menu among others. After our dinner, we started our socials. Our socials had a good start because of starry night and beautiful moon in the sky that time but we were interrupted by a strong rain. We rushed inside of our tents but to no avail because of the rain. Several tents were “flooded” inside. Only our tent, the one where Lanie and I stayed, only survived such “flood”. After the rain, some haven’t had their sleep. It was a chillin’ night, aside from the fact that we were in top of the mountain making it naturally cold, the rain worsen the weather. Lanie couldn’t sleep at that night because of our condition but I was on the opposite (^_^).
At 6:00 A.M of Nov. 22, we had our wake-up call and prepared for breakfast. Breakcamp was done at around 9:30 A.M then had our way down at 10:00. Around 11:30, we reached the Pico falls and had some fun there. We saw some trashes on the trail along Pico falls and picked it up. On the falls, an accident occurred. Drey, one of the SFCs, slipped on one of the stones located in the falls. It wasn’t that bad though and she still made it to the jump-off. The falls was beautiful. We were the only group at that time and we took our time to enjoy in swimming the cold waters of the falls.
Around 1:00 P.M, we continued our trek down to DENR Ternate. At 2:05 P.M, we reached the DENR Ternate and refreshed our tired body. We also had our lunch and took some pictures. After we prayed to give thanks to our Lord for the safe climb He gave us, we left the DENR to have our way home at around 5:30 P.M. Then at 7:00 P.M, we took the last bus bound to Manila from Maragondon.
Kaisipan Pagkatapos ng Akyat
Ang pangalawang akyat ko na ito ay sa ibang grupo ulit. Ang una sa Mt. Kalisungan kasama ko ang Metropolitan Mountaineering Society. Isa ito sa pagpapatunay na ang pakikisalamuha sa isang grupo na wala kang personal na kakilala ay hindi dapat pangambahan basta pipiliin at pakakaiingatan ang grupong sasamahan. Ito rin ay nagbigay sa akin ng oportunidad para dumami ang aking kakilala at magkaroon ng panibagong mga kaibigan. Ito rin ay nakadagdag sa aking karanasan para matuto pa sa mga aspeto ng pamumundok. Kasama na rito ang pagiging handa sa hindi inaasahang pagpapalit ng lagay ng panahon. Sa lahat- lahat, ang kasiyahan na dulot nito sa amin. Naisip at naramdaman ko rito na ang kasiyahan sa pag-akyat ng bundok ay hindi lamang nakasalalay sa preparasyon, sa bundok na aakyatin bagkus ay sa mga kasama rin sa bundok. Dahil ang kasiyahan sa pag-akyat ay nagiging puno ng tawanan at kasayahan dahil sa mga kwento ng bawat isa at sa mga postura na kung anu-ano pag may kamera nang kasama ^_^.
_Cory_ Oct.31, 2010
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