4-1 @ Mt. Maranat

On wednesday, January 15th @ 7am

Where did the idea to climb Mt Maranat come from?

3 weeks ago..

I was at a friends house for a gathering, involving beer at which edward, dexter, annabelle and jeffrey is present and the group decided to try climbing with me ( mga lasing na kasi sila ).This has been on my mind for a long time and I guess this is as good as a time as any to put it out there.

I hate preparing for my adventures. I hate details. I hate planning. I’d rather just show up and figure things out along the way.

Fortunately, for this trip, I did my best to adequately prepare since im climbing for the first time with my high school classmates (and all of them are first time climbers).

The seven of us left tungko at 8:00 am and arrived at the jumpoff (licao-licao) around 9:00 am. We walked over to the trail and started climbing. jackie by the way joined us in this trip .

The last hour of the climb going to tatay nestor was a rock to rock foot placement , then you need to cross the river and you need technical attention to ensure you will not fall. But let me tell you, getting up to those last few steps up exposed the beauty infront of us, TOTALLY worth it! What a sight, I can't even put it into words, to be surrounded by peaks and valleys of mountains, to be up in the sky like that is truly unreal!

So, when I say “30 more minutes” on the first hour of climbing, I was lying.

We finally reach tatay nestor's kubo at exactly 12 noon.

Down was as tough as up. We needed to move quickly and concentrate hard so as not too slip down the mountain. It was a tough going and dexter's knees were certainly feeling it. We made good time and tried to stop as little as possible.

As we pulled off the exit ramp going to kawayanan, we were greeted with a rainbow.

Definitely a perfect ending to an amazing day.

Happy climbing in 2014!