A YEAR OF HAPPY HIKING

Year 2009 Location: Everywhere - (late post)

As the New Year is approaching, I’m here compiling my happy hiking moments for the year 2009. This is really a year of travelling and going to places. For the past 12 months, I have laid my back on the bed of grasses on top of eleven mountains. To my amazement, I’ve climbed twelve times and it was a different experience on each.

Officially, the February climb at Mount Pundaquit was my second since the first was 10 years ago. Armed with no physical exercise at all, I felt my knees numbling on the way up. But still, the smiles and stories along the way keep me enthusiastic of reaching Anawangin Cove which we only reached it after five hours. This is the place where “Happy Hikers” was uttered and became a group.

My second was together with the Akyat IT Mountaineers group. It was really a good fortune of reaching the Mount Pulag summit early morning and witnessing the grandest sunrise above the clouds. There is where also we adept the coldness of the night which scaled down to 7 degrees.

Dayhikes was the theme for the third and fourth. Mount Arayat was the third doing it in a rapid dayhike climb. I just remembered, this is where my big stomach almost collapsed because of those crazy jumpshots at the peak. ;-) . The fourth was with the help of 4x4 road warriors in the lahar bed of Mount Pinatubo, the shortest trekking time which was less than an hour but still we enjoyed the calmness of the Crater Lake.

The next is the Batanghamog climb at Mt. Pundaquit; we were joined by other friends which made us a larger group. It was a success story of organizing one climb for this village people; I guess it will be little bit harder this time.

Mount Apo was right on schedule for an April climb and time to visit our relatives down the archipelago. Four Happy Hikers joined and my cousins to try the Bongolanon-Kidapawan trail. All emotions that you can think of was seen on this journey but still our patience, teamwork, friendship and trust keep us to together to accomplish the four-day hike.

Next was our own way of Independence Day climb at Tarak Ridge in Bataan. We just realized up there that there was an ongoing Annual Freedom climb, nevertheless we did our part.

Mid year, I was looking for a group to join and I found one in BAROC (Barkadahan Adventure Recreation Outdoor Club). My only climb with this group was at Mt.Ugo, a very long and endless walking as I can say but worth it. Too bad, I was not able to join them again on the rest of the scheduled climbs. Next year would be a good starting point.

Next, together with the emoticon juggernut, we joined the Kasilungan uphill in Laguna of MMS (Metropolitan Mountaineering Society). One thing I remember with this group is the cookfest which deviates from the classic mountain recipes.

The next two was in Batangas area which is the green and clean Talamitan, the other one is the shivering Manabu campsite. Remember the spaghetti parade at Talamitan and Chicken Ala King at Manabu. All I can say, these two mountains are terrific for family bonding out of the norm.

The final one was at Pico De Loro summit. Like the latter two mountains, I really love to go back on these types of mountains. You can have siesta all day and you can break-camp even after lunch time.

Too many things to learn on each climb, too many things to see, too many too things to share, all the too many things you can say are there…

More Mountains on 2010 to Conquer and Enjoy!