Mt. Manabo, Biak-na-Bundok and Mt. Malipunyo 10/30/2010

Solo Climb

People fear what they don't understand. Sometimes, fear translates into prejudice and cruelty. Almost four years have passed since I was laid off from an institution due to my unwarranted environmentalist and mountaineering activities. Ugnayan Kalikasan was mistaken for a militant political organization. My family, especially my daughter, was badly affected by the devastating event.

Sadness led me to the Malarayat Mountain Range on October 30, 2010. I was alone intending to find the unfamiliar trails connecting Mt. Manabo, Biak-na-bundok and Mt. Malipunyo. A storm that swept the country earlier had covered some trails with fallen stalks and branches. The possibility of getting lost in the forest was high. The thirst and the partial dehydration that Ugnayan Kalikasan members and I had suffered when we were lost in Mt. Malipunyo way back summer 2005 were still fresh in my mind. The pain when my right leg brushed against a poisonous plant called lipay during a solo return climb at the end of 2005 flashed back.

I was also worried that I might encounter snakes on trail, be they giant pythons or poisonous ones. To add to my worries, locals had warned me about the presence of deadly wild boar traps in the mountains.

Before the trek, I told God that if I was a good-for-nothing person, He should let me die in the mountains. If I would live to see civilization again, I would take it as a sign to continue doing what I thought was right.

After passing by the summit of Mt. Manabo at sundown, I proceeded to the shack of Tatay Pirye to spend the night there. Tatay Pirye was a friend whose shack was always open to visitors. He was popular among hikers and mountaineers for offering bottomless cups of hot kapeng barako for free. Learning from the old man things about the people, flora and fauna, terrain and history of the place was an opportunity and privilege. The next day, after breakfast, I started heading toward Mt. Malipunyo.

I was lost for hours in the thickets, roamed around in circles and reached a place thrice. Bamboo vines and thorny palms blocked my path almost all the time. Good thing rain came and I didn’t have to worry about thirst and dehydration. I drank and took water from a small stream in a canyon. I found an unkempt orchard of lanzones and coffee in the middle of the forest. Peelings of lanzones littered the ground. Monkeys might have eaten the fruits. I ate some leftovers— they were sour!

I found and tried to follow a wild boar track but lost it in the bushes. (A few months later, upon my return to Mt. Manabo, Tatay Pirye would tell me that the track could have led me to a deadly trap. He said that a trapper would normally fix trap on the track of an animal.) After hours of roaming the forest, I came out in a grassy path leading to Biak-na-bundok.

Getting away from the entangled bamboo vines and thorny palms of the forest meant coming face-to-face with the briers and sharp-leafed tadlak and talahib stalks of the grassland. The thorns and sharp leaves of all those plants gave my body wounds and scratches especially on my arms, hands, legs and feet.

After less than an hour of hiking through the grassy trail, Mt. Bagwis revealed her charm and elegance. Seeing Mt. Bagwis up close and from a new angle was invigorating! The panoramic view also signaled that Biak-na-bundok was near.

The sun was high and the air was steaming hot when I reached the open grassland of Biak-na-bundok. Seeing for the second time the guardian mounds was nostalgic of 2005. Mts. Banahaw, San Cristobal, Maculot and the main peaks of Malarayat Range could all be seen from the cogonal area.

Hiking downhill gave me the opportunity to meet again an old acquaintance who gave me the direction to the summit of Mt. Malipunyo. I dipped and washed a little in a rustling stream. After refilling my plastic bottle with water, I continued hiking but deviated from the main trail to frolic in the waterfalls of Talisay.

On higher elevation, I reached a grove of moss-covered trees and then followed the trail through the summit ridge of Mt. Malipunyo. However, I was driven back by thick fog and strong gust before I could reach the pinnacle. Those atmospheric elements coupled with the dark sky made me think that a storm might be coming.

It was already dark when I came down the mountain. The night was cold. Rain poured heavily throughout the night. I was wet and muddy all over. I was like a zombie walking through the dark and rugged trail. The date was October 31, 2010. It was Halloween.

When I knocked on their door, the Marsol family who I never knew before immediately welcomed and allowed me to spend the night with them! Trusting people, I thought. They gave me the typical warm rural hospitality in their cozy shack at the foot of Mt. Malipunyo.

It was still raining the next day. I could only leave with an improvised raincoat made from gabi leaf and a freshly picked squash courtesy of Kuya Cesar, the head of the family. Afterwards, I hiked toward the barangay proper. Once there, I changed my wet and muddy clothes in a house of another hospitable family. Inquisitive locals couldn't believe that I had just went through the mountains alone during the season of the spirits of the dead.

Once at home, I realized how compassionate and sympathetic Nature was. But the odd patterns of pricking on my skin showed that she was quite a lousy tattoo artist.

(In 2011, a teenaged boy who went searching for food near Biak-na-bundok was killed by a wild boar trap. In 2013, a mountaineer went missing for four days until rescue came near the guardian mounds. The mountaineer was found to have sustained a wound caused by the same kind of trap.)