February 26, 2010
Today, we will go into separate paths. Bernard and Cicelle will be joining in the tour going the burial caves and other landmarks. For me and Mher, will be climbing Mount Iraya, the mountain fronting Basco airport. Tita Lydia already secured us our permit and she also provided us a local guide named Toniko (aka Mark Anthony).
After our Cornsilog breakfast, we met with our guide down the hotel lobby and headed to Hiro’s café to get our packed lunch. A short tricycle ride at the back of the runway and there is our jump-off area.
When we get here last Sunday, there is already clouds hovering this mountain and still on out sixth day, clouds are still there..It is really a sacred mountain like Dinem (the island mountain), for the two days we have crossed that mountain in the sea, it has same aura as Iraya.
Our trail walk started at exactly 7:40AM, we got to the start of the assault fifteen (15) minutes after. From there, it was all assault; I believe almost 90% of the trail. We have crossed several ridges and 50% of the trail does not have signs. We do not have to worry because Toniko just said that his last climb was in 1998 when he was just a kid. (hehehe) With the smile on our face, we are confident that he knows the place very well as he says, the only thing changed were cogon reeds getting taller and foot areas are covered with ferns and vines.
As we go up and up, he made some slash on some trees and vines to make trail signs. Also as Tita Lydia says, be careful in shouting in the area as this is a majestic place, also we need to cautious to some wild animals like snakes and vipers. We were very lucky that these animals did not come out to surprise us.
Mher had synchronized his altimeter at the Tukun weather station. So at 10:30AM, we are at 800MASL and another uphill climb, we reached the 903 MASL at exact 11:00AM. We uncovered some trash along the trail so we decided to bring it down during our downhill approach.
Another 30 minutes and we reached the summit. We only measured it at 987MASL as compared to 1009MASL to some internet details. We did not push thru to the end point since all you can see is a white background. We ate our lunch and rest for about at hour.
The downhill is much harder than going upwards, with steep rock formations, muddy areas, leaves and sliding branches. We had a fair share of stumbles. Be careful with unseen vines because of tall ferns, you might get hook and fall. We rallied down for almost two hours and reaching the flat land at 3:00PM.
At the shade of coconuts, Toniko got us with fresh buko for refreshing our thirst. After the thirst quencher, we headed to Hiro’s café to take merienda but it was closed. As a bonus, we ate again street foods. As we heading back to the hotel, we called Cicelle and she let us know that Sir Elmer (Batanes Mountaineer) is asking we could met with him. Just down Abad St is the place so went straight and have a sharing session with Sir William (President of Batanes Mountaineers) and Elmer.
They will be climbing tomorrow for the Climbpalooza event. He shared the other unexplored areas in Batanes and also good spots for biking and camping.
Next time, we will be doing that. :-)
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