Mt. Pangasugan [Part II]: You Know What's Dangerous? Having Expectations

Hello everyone!

This is a series of posts that I've invested so much. I haven't had this enthusiasm for a topic in a while. Maybe because it was a life-and-death situation. As I noted in my last post, this was the most grueling 72 hours of my life. Let me pick up where I left off in the first part.

The campsite is located at a confluence or junction of two rivers. Mt. Pangasugan Ranges Protected Landscape is characterized by deep canyons carved by those rivers. That junction is also the starting point of a very steep ridge. Just imagine we were at an elevation of 300 MASL and then to reach the summit, there's an abrupt ascent of 700 meters. But that's at the easiest trail. Other places in the range are just cliffs.

We decided to take a dip in the river after a few minutes of rest. Exhaustion from the trek was replaced by pure bliss. It was one of the best things that happened in the whole Mt. Pangasugan ordeal. Submerged at the point where the two rivers meet while some monkeys were swinging at the trees above the canyon, it was so surreal. They were curious, but they kept their distance. I felt having a deep clean; not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. We had a great time at the river that before we know it, it was time to set up our hammock and prepare for dinner.

Remember how I walked around Ayala to buy a hammock? Remember how I ignored the premonitions just because I was so excited to try sleeping in a hammock? I guess it's time to complete the story.

It took us a long time to decide on which tree we would tie our individual hammocks. As only Alton has experience in setting up hammocks, he was the one in charge of making sure that we would not suddenly fall in the middle of the night. It was a nightmare just to decide where we would set up just for the four of us. It would have been chaos if all ten people who initially confirmed pushed through. Considering that there were only two flysheets, it would have been a hunger games scenario.

We were thankful that the guides helped us in setting up everything. After the "sleeping quarter" have been secured, we immediately put on insect repellents as they started to swarm, signaling that the night is coming. Good thing we didn't delay in setting up the hammock and flysheets because it started to rain. Although it was not too strong, it would have been a disaster if we didn't pitch the flysheets. We never thought it would rain that day, but the guides said we were welcomed by the mountain.

We cooked our dinner, which turned out to be difficult as there was no flat ground to lay down the cook set, but we managed anyway. There was nothing to do after dinner, so we immediately tucked ourselves into our hammocks. We had some silly games and then shared some horror stories to lull ourselves to sleep. Our guides had their usual alcohol session, but we didn't join them because we were anticipating the brutal ascent to the summit the next day. We agreed to start the ascent at 5:00 AM. I think I slept at around 7:30 or 8:00 PM.

I woke up at around 4:30 AM but didn't move until everyone started to prepare for the arduous climb to the summit on the second day. The first mistake: We didn't anticipate how long it was to prepare breakfast and lunch. It took us more than two hours to prepare everything, so we started the climb at 7:20 AM. I took a photo of our campsite when we started the climb. Second mistake: I was thinking we could come back to the campsite and sleep in the hammock for the second time.

The first part of the climb was mostly under the thick canopy of the forest. I love that part because there was no sun exposure, but the terrain was unforgiving. It was one of the steepest climbs I've had, if not the steepest. And to think we were in the ridge, it means it was the easiest route there. Just imagine that for you to move up, your knees and chin will almost touch. It's that steep, while both sides are cliffs. The only protection from falling we had was the dense forest.

There are portions of the trail that required ropes. That's Sheila holding on to the rope to move up. It's not even a real rope. It's made from a sack of fertilizers, but it can hold our weight, so it's the best option we had. It's either you do a rappelling maneuver, which required a lot of upper-body strength because there's no harness or any safety protection, or you hold on to the rope in one hand while holding on to the roots and shrubs in the other hand. Everything required strength and we just started.

There were moments of relief when we reached the flat parts of the trail that felt like reaching the summit, but it was just so short-lived. We would rest for a while and then it was assault again. It felt like Spartan Trail, but it was ten times steeper and a hundred times longer.

Because of the dense canopy, it was rare to see the view and gauge how far we have gone, but there were small clearings that we call "windows of the forest". The thumbnail photo and the photo above are the best we have. The view should have been breathtaking, but everything's shrouded by the forest.

I brought my GoPro because I was expecting to take a lot of photos, but I only took less than ten photos throughout the whole climb. I took most of the photos using my phone. I find it such a hassle because it dangled around my neck that I ended up putting it back in my sling bag. The mountain in the background in the right photo above will give you an idea of how far we were in reaching the summit. And no, that was not the summit.

The two photos above will give you a glimpse of the dense forest we were in.

After all the photos, goofing around, and making fun of our predicament, we continued the climb and reached Garapata Avenue at about 8:30 AM. Then the guide to us that we were still so far from the summit. We were wondering why they call that place as such because "garapata" is tick in Filipino. And true to its name, we saw a tick there! It was one of the strangest ticks I've seen. For some unknown reason, no one took a photo, but it was really big for a tick. It has white stripes and it wasn't full of blood, but it was big and its skin was so hard it felt like a scale. Our guide told us it was a wild boar tick.

Enough with ticks. We continued the climb until we reached the peak of that ridge at around 10:00 AM. From that peak, our next goal was the old campsite. We should be able to reach the old campsite before lunch because it would be downhill and then trail alongside the base of the mountain. I was wondering why we would go downhill again and the guide said that the old trails were gone after Typhoons Odette in 2021 and Agaton in 2022.

Third mistake: Believing our guides that we would reach the summit by noon.

When we reached the peak of the ridge, we asked the guides about how far the old campsite is and the answer was optimistic. As I've noted above, it was downhill and we would pass by another ridge and the old campsite would not be too far. They said the trail would be much easier compared to the continuous assault. How dangerous it was to have expectations, just like how dangerous the trail had become.

As we descended through thick and lush vegetation, it felt like no one passed by that trail in a long time. Leeches started to make their presence known, but they were the least of my concerns. Mosquitoes started to become annoying as they swarm like crazy the moment you stop moving.

The moment our guide called us to show that spotted pit viper resting at a root in the trail itself, I knew the stakes became higher. Suddenly, everyone became wary of holding anything, may it be a root, leaves, bushes, or tree trunks. Since pit vipers are so venomous, any bite could be fatal considering how far we were from civilization and we were not even sure if we have an antidote. It felt like everything in Mt. Pangasugan is meant to kill you.

Mt. Pangasugan is called The Last Frontier of Eastern Visayas because of its lush vegetation. It's one of the last remaining rainforests in the Philippines with an overwhelming endemic flora and fauna. The mountain is protected by the researchers at Visayas State University (VSU). Our guide said that the ecologists of the university would often hire him to be their guide and they stay at the mountain for two months at a time doing their research.

As we inched closer to the old campsite, the trail seemed to become more difficult. Eventually, the guide told us that we won't be able to reach the campsite by lunchtime if we would follow the old trail. They decided to make their own trail! It became a full trailblazing and bushwhacking. I was not sure if they were lost or not, but I just thought that they know the mountain so well that I had to trust them. Plus, we really didn't have a choice unless we decide to go back to our campsite.

Armed with his bolo, our main guide went ahead to create a trail for us while our porter was behind us to clean to trail further. It was slow and sometimes we had to wait for them to create a contraption for us to hold on. Since there were no ropes, they would gather rattan and tie them to roots for us to hold on and that would be our only way of not plummeting to the cliffs below us.

I was relieved when we reached a clearing with a stream and the guide told us it was the old campsite. Because of a landslide, all the trees near the stream, where they usually set up their hammocks, were swept away. All that's left was bedrock with some bushes and small plants.

We had our lunch at the old campsite while the mosquitoes were also having a feast. When we were moving, they were not much of a problem. But when we stopped, they were relentless. Since I wear all black, it turned out they were more attracted to me so I get swarmed. Plus their proboscis can penetrate through my leggings and my rashguard. I can swat five at a time. After lunch, we refilled our water from the stream.

Fourth mistake: I ate all my lunch food.

This turned out to be longer than I expected, so I'll end this post here. I'll have the third part as the final assault to the summit and the fourth part as our descent from the summit. See you at the next parts as this is not yet the exciting part.

Kim Ybañez

_{Welcome to Kim's small corner in Hive. He is a chemical engineer by profession, but a blogger by passion. He is a wanderlust and an adventure seeker. Join his quests as he visits remote destinations, climbs mountains, tries new and exotic dishes, and explores his country (The Philippines). He's also a trying-hard photographer so stay tuned as he shares his photos and his thought process while creating them.}

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