Mt. Batulao Dayhike 811+

October 2016 - Mt. Batulao, Batangas

Finally, I was going to hike Mt. Batulao with my friends, Louise and Elle. It was Elle's first time to do trekking and was a bit excited about it. We met up at EDSA Crossing at around 3am and hailed a taxi to the bus terminal in Buendia. We boarded a bus bound to Nasugbu, Batangas and asked to be dropped off at Evercrest. We did not expect to arrive at our destination very early at 5 am. It was still dark when we had to find our way to the jump off. Good thing, Jhonniel was already awake and volunteered to be our guide. We had our morning coffee and we started our trek at exactly 6:45 am. 

Dab in the mountains

It was foggy and cloudy at the same time during our ascent. The trail was wet and damp as well, due to the overcast weather in the past days. Fortunately, it did not rain when we were on our way up to the summit.  We did not take a lot of stops to rest, just a minute or two to catch our breath and drink water. It only took us 2 hours to reach Peak 12 but we were a bit disappointed to see that there was no clearing at the summit. It was too foggy. :(

No clearing at Peak 12

But since we got there early, we decided to stay and wait for a clearing. Louise already dozed off to sleep while Elle was very busy taking selfies. We were there for an hour already and we were getting hopeless of having a clearing and almost deciding to start our descent. Suddenly, the fog disappeared! We relish the moment we waited for and savored the wonderful view. 

L-R: Elle, Louise and I

After we appeased ourselves, we decided to get back, as heavy rain clouds were also threatening us. 

There was a rope segment which made the climb more challenging. Although we did not really use the rope on our way up because it was easier to climb holding on to the rocks. However, we rappelled our way down.

Rope segment ascent