The Big, Wide World: Rising to the Challenge: Conquering Mount Pulag

Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating—Denis Waitley

I have never climbed mountains, and I never had the inclination to. I admit that my curiosity about it was satisfied by stories of my friends who relished the cold winds and muscle pains from the hours they spent walking to the peak. How exhilarated they were when they spoke of the view from the top, I mused. I never fully understood their enthusiasm, until I got an opportunity to climb Mount Pulag, the highest mountain in Luzon, or the second highest mountain in the country, after Mount Apo in Mindanao.

The awe inspired by the imposing mountains of Benguet is heightened by the stillness of the surroundings, and towering above it all is Mount Pulag. At 2,922 meters above sea level, Mt. Pulag covers 11,550 hectares, with parts in Benguet, Ifugao, and Nueva Vizcaya. Mt. Pulag was declared a national park 1987, in order to protect the ecology and the endangered animals of the area. Several tribes call the mountain home, and consider it sacred. There are five trails leading to the summit. Thomas decided to take the easy route up, from Ambangeg, Benguet, since this was my first climb. We packed our provisions, and headed to conquer a mountain.

Day 1

From Baguio, we took a Norton bus to Kabayan, Benguet. The last bus to Kabayan leaves at around one o’clock in the afternoon, and we had to hurry to catch the last bus.

We arrived at Ambangeg, at the foot of the mountain, at half past three. We went to the Protected Area Office for a short briefing on what to expect up the mountain, and to pay the park registration fee. Filipinos and Filipino residents (like Thomas) have to pay 100 pesos, while non-residents have to shell out $ 15 US. We also had to pay a 50 peso Camping fee and a 25 peso “green fee.” He said that a guide would meet us at the Ranger Station , a 14 kilometer hike from the office, and would have to pay him 500 pesos to take us to the summit. He explained that the guides are locals, and mountain tours were a way for them to make a living. Our fees would go to the management of the park.

We were advised to take our trash back down the mountain with us, and that we cannot gather wood for fire. We divested ourselves of non-essential items, making our backpacks as light we possibly can, and entrusted it to the office for safekeeping. We took a knife, lots of carbohydrate-rich instant food, two 1.5 liter bottles of water, winter jackets, a change of clothes, warm fleece blankets, and thermal mats. A dog from the office had taken us under her wing and led the way for us up the mountain. I named her “Nana.”

The first few kilometres of the route were paved, to allow vehicles to transport the vegetables grown by the locals to the markets in Baguio and La Trinidad. I was relatively in shape, so when I was informed that we would be taking the easy route, I thought that I could take the mountain easily. No sweat, I thought, this is like Level 5 in a stepmaster or cross-trainer in the gym. Taking Level 5 in the stepmaster relentlessly for hours and hours is bound to take the wind out of anybody, I thought, when I started to feel tired an hour into the climb. I congratulated myself on the progress I was making when a woman and a young girl passed us, without breaking a sweat.

Camp 1

It was starting to get dark, so we decided to camp at an elementary school in a few kilometres from where we started. The pair who earlier passed us by were seated by a sari-sari store. They suggested that we camp at an elementary school in the small village. We set up our tent beside one of the school buildings, and walked back to the village to buy instant noodles. We asked a local woman if we could cook the noodles in her home, and she agreed. The fragrant smell of burning pine wood from her stove permeated her warm kitchen, while some men in the next house watched the news from a small black-and-white TV. As she served us water, she explained that since the tap water in all the villages came from a spring on top of the mountain, it was safe to drink. The night was cold, hovering at 10 degrees Celcius. We slept fully wrapped in our blankets, winter jackets, and long pants.

Day 2

We woke up to the sound of Nana’s barking and of children trickling into school. Moisture from last night dripped into our tent, so we had to dry it while we went about his or her morning business. We started hiking at around 7 a.m.

We had a long walk ahead of us. I started to complain about the rough road, muddy at some parts, rocky in most. Despite the cold air, I was sweating profusely through my thin cotton shirt. I should not really complain much. We were lucky that the weather was relatively warm and crisp. We had worried that unexpected rain that drenched Manila last December would continue on until January, and the mud would definitely complicate our trek. We stopped at several stores along the way to buy provisions, like biscuits, and bought fresh carrots from a farmer to replenish our supplies. We didn’t want to take too much food with us up the mountain. Small terraces on the mountain were planted with peas, carrots, and cabbage. The way of life here seemed as ancient, and as ageless, as the mountain.

At around 10 a.m., Nana disappeared, perhaps to go back to the base. Luckily, we were not far from the Ranger Station, which was 10 kilometers from the summit. We were introduced to Cornelio, our guide. He was a local, from the Kalanguya tribe. We had a lunch of instant noodles with stewed cabbage and carrots. We wordlessly resumed our climb at noon.

The road disappeared, giving way to meandering foot trails that cut through grassland, or sat at the edge of ravines. We then entered a moss rainforest, thick with primeval fern trees, dwarf bamboo bushes that barely reached my waist, and mist. The bizarre vegetation reminded me of fairy tales. I thought of Hansel and Gretel and their trail of bread crumbs. Somewhere below we heard the gush of an unseen river. The air was perpetually damp, the trail muddy. Water flowed from tubes stuck to the sides of the mountain, their spouts encrusted with moss.

There are three permitted campsites in Mt. Pulag, and we reached the second campsite, closest to the top, at 3 p.m. We were only 2 kilometers from the summit, but we decided to climb up in time for the sunrise. We decided to resume our climb at 4 am the next day. We set up our tent, while Cornelio wisely decided to sleep in a nearby shed.

My ‘Blair Witch’ Night

I woke up at 8 p.m., as the bitter cold nipped my socked feet. I slept in my winter jacket and my long pants, bundled up in three thick blankets, yet the cold penetrated my cocoon. A Manila girl through and through, I was unused to single digit temperatures. My teeth chattered as I weathered what I felt was the most miserable night of my life. I was on the verge of crying, as I dreamt (or hallucinated?) eating ‘Amaterasu chicken’ (as I told Thomas) while biting into my cold, day-old hamburger. What this magical chicken was, I don’t know. I think the mountain was getting to me.

I was more than ready to take to the summit at 11 p.m. The cold robbed me of rest, as it roused me every time I tried to drift into sleep. Moving was the only way I could keep the chills at bay, so I sat up, and started rocking myself while I cried. How miserable, how miserable, I thought, I want to get off this blasted mountain. I had my flashlight under me. Then I realized that save for a camera, I was just like the girl in that Blair Witch movie.

The Air up There

I went out of the tent to take a leak at a nearby cathole when I saw the full moon. Its light was so bright that I thought a spotlight was shining on me. I turned to look at my surroundings, and again, I felt that I was trapped in a more sinister Grimm Brothers fairy tale. The light illuminated the rolling landscape, and I marvelled at how otherwordly everything looked under the moon and the million stars behind it.

The cold was too much to bear, so we decided to head to the shed at around three a.m., where Cornelio was. We found him in a place a few degrees warmer than where we were, and cursed ourselves for deciding to spend the night in our tent.

We started for the summit at 4 a.m. Cornelio’s flashlight was the sole point that illuminated the path. Perhaps, we were lucky to have trekked to the summit in the darkness. I would not see that there were deep ravines at either side of me until we got down the mountain at daybreak. The trees became sparser and sparser, giving way to brush and clumps of dwarf bamboo. The narrow trails sometimes could only accommodate the width of a foot. The icy fingers of the cold, dry wind whipped into my face, and neither my hat, nor the upraised faux fur collar of my jacket, could keep it out. But we were moving, and for that I was grateful.

At around 5:30 a.m., I thought we had reached the summit, when I saw that we still had to climb a 50-foot hill, and it had a steep incline, which conjured mental images of me rolling 2,922 meters down the mountain. I was at my breaking point. Me, who had never climbed a mountain, who endured a miserable night of frost, who thought that the worst was over, had another hill to climb. Tears were running down my face, as I grit my teeth and tackled the ascent. I had to, I had to, I have to conquer this mountain, I thought.

Cornelio had to hoist my lazy Manila ass up to the summit, and I sobbed as I reached the top. Perhaps, it was the effect of accumulated exhaustion, the cold, the hunger, the dirt. I reached the summit. I did not let the mountain get the better of me. The top of the mountain was bald, save for some grass and a bush of dwarf bamboo. We looked around the mountain, and saw the streetlights of Baguio, Sto. Tomas, Pangasinan, and Sagada. We saw the mountains of Ifugao.

The sky began to lighten, turning into slate gray, to white, to pink, to sky blue. The first rays of the sun radiated across the horizon. Eventually, a bright yellow arc emerged, and it seemed to fill half of the earth. The sea of clouds 1,000 feet below us carpeted the mountain. We were the first people in Luzon, maybe in the Philippines, to see the sunrise that day. I felt we were at the roof of the earth.

It took us 2 days to scale the summit, and 4 ½ hours to go down the mountain.