Second hike, first summit! Mt. Maculot

Hey everyone! First, i’d like to apologize for my absence for like a month?

I told you I hate excuses so I don’t like making one too. I can be so cruel to myself. But I guess I owe you guys an explanation? (Hehehe) So, here let me try making a creative excuse: You know I’ve started studying more about fashion coz I want to be part of the  industry (professionally) and I’ve been juggling my time between my full time job, part time job; researching, styling and doing photo shoot plus photo editing for my assignments, and hey my graphic design class have just started too. In short, my blogging life have to sacrifice a little, but will try my best to catch up.

Moving on, I want to share here my hiking trip to Mt. Maculot with my parents, titos and tita last February. How fun was that? Well, I wasn’t the youngest in the group to start with; there’s only a little age difference between me, my titos, and tita; and my parents are just in their 40s. It’s very unusual though that I do this kind of trip with my parents. I’d say it was fun-ny (pun intended) in its own special way. What makes it more unbelievable is it was my mom who initiated this hiking trip. But that was cool, right?

It was 9:00 am when we started trekking. It was raining intermittently too. The way up the mountain was steep and muddy and slippery making our climb more challenging especially for non pros like us. Along the way we encountered people going up and down the mountain. We’ve exchanged hellos, take care and wishes of luck it was amusing because people don’t do such in a normal setting.

The owner of this bath place is my distant grandfather!

On the way up we found resting stations selling fresh coconut juice and light snacks so we had a lot of stop overs (Hello, newbies). Halo-halo anyone?

It was already 11:30 when we reached the campsite so we head right away to climb the Rockies.

This is butchi ng batangas by the way. My favorite local food in Batangas.

From this view, I thought it would be impossible to climb those rocks, but then again the adrenaline rush spiked telling me I have to do it.

So I did! It was 12:15 P.M. too bad I couldn’t get a decent photo of me. It was so windy up there I felt like the wind could fly me any moment. But the view was so darn beautiful! We had a good view of Taal volcano up there.

The rain had stopped leaving a muddy trail. We reached the summit at around 3 in the afternoon giving everyone a rewarding feeling. It’s as if we won first place in a marathon.

Climbing down the summit was twice harder because we have to do a lot of rappelling with no harness. We had to be very careful otherwise we might end up with broken bones or it could just be the first and last mountain for us.

The scariest part for me was when reached the grotto it was 6:25 P.M and the wind up there was so strong, stronger than when we were at the Rockies and Summit, it was whistling. I am dauntless, but I don’t want to be blown away unplanned. Hahaha

Hiking may be a very tiring activity as it requires great physical and mental strength. During the ascent someone could ask why are we doing this? The other could curse the person who invited him/her. Then probably you could hear someone promising that he/she will never hike again, ever. The funny thing is, when you reach the highest parts of the mountain (Rockies – Summit – Grotto) and see the beautiful view from the top it gives you a rewarding feeling. It rejuvenates the once depleted energy and makes you want to take back everything negative you have just said on your way up because the truth is you want to do it over and over again. It is addictive.

Mount Maculot, Cuenca Batangas
Rockies - 706 MASL
Summit - 930 MASL
Grotto - 510 MASL