Mt Makulot Mountain Hiking
a beginner's step
The year was 2002, and I've only started mountain hiking.
Back in the summer of that year I only had two climbs under my belt ? Arayat in Pampanga and Batulao in Batangas ? so I still didn't fully appreciate the natural beauty of these towering gems.
That is, until I saw Mt. Makulot.
I still recall the mushy note I wrote in my notebook the first time I set eyes on it: Could anyone be more beautiful than her? I asked myself.
The golden afternoon sun setting behind her only made her look even more divine.
I could see her magnificence even as an ethereal veil shrouded her face.
I was scolding myself for being spellbound too early, but the calm summer sky speckled with the remnants of the setting sun's red and orange glow only deepened my fascination.
And up to this day, I could swear I was still holding myself back.
Makulot is an eight hundred meter-high peak located in the town of Cuenca in Batangas.
Viewed from Tagaytay ridge, she can be seen with her car-shaped form dominating the horizon across the shimmering waters of Taal Lake.
She gets a lot of visitors during the Holy Week. During those days, throngs of pilgrims would be there to offer prayers and light candles at the grotto of the Virgin Mary.
The first part of the trail we took involves a long, cemented stairway passing through the fourteen stations of Christ's passion and death, and ultimately leading to the grotto.
There are other trails leading to the campsite, but the one we took for that assault is generally regarded as more challenging.
Mountain hiking sites describe Makulot as a Level 1 mountain, a very easy climb. This discovery trimmed my ego down to size forever. I always thought Makulot gave me a hard time.
It was already five in the afternoon when our group of twenty-one, mostly mountain hiking greenhorns, reached the foot of the mountain.
It was obvious that we wouldn't reach the campsite before dark, but we couldn't have cared less.
A grueling night trek was exactly what we wanted.
It didn't take long for us to realize that trekking at night was no picnic.
The dark slowed our progress, and soon we resorted to using only one flashlight at a time, to conserve energy.
One of the best parts of the climb was when we came to a hefty rock wall along the way.
We had to take on the wall on all fours, one by one, with only the glow from a solitary flashlight guiding our way.
It took all of us thirty minutes to get through, lucky to escape with nothing worse than a few scratches.
After hiking for about six hours, four more than the usual, we reached the summit. It was about 10PM.
As our leader scouted the trail, some of our comrades ate, some took a nap, and some even took the time to call their girlfriends, speaking as if they weren't shaking with fear just a few minutes before, when it was almost their turn to deal with the rock wall.
The summit is not much, only a small circular patch of soil.
But the sky above was pitch black, and without the glare of city lights, there was far more than the usual number of stars ornamenting its vastness.
After a while our leader came back, and told us that the trek to the campsite, near an area known as the Rockies, would take about thirty minutes.
The Rockies is a massive, treeless conglomeration of rocks separated from the campsite by a deep gorge.
They say it provides an exhilarating view of Taal Lake and Batangas, a real respite from long hours of mountain hiking.
The trail to the Rockies was indeed taxing. Trees covered most of the way, such that the sky was invisible for the longest time.
But then we came to a clearing. Everybody cheered.
The lights of Batangas after dark were on our left, and the brooding Taal Lake was on our right.
White lightning streaked across the sky every now and then, but the sky remained decked with stars from horizon to horizon.
All in all we registered a humiliating seven hours of hiking, but each one was well worth it.
The chirping, cheeping, twittering and peeping of different kinds of birds woke us up the next morning.
Could anything be as wonderful? Taal Lake on our right, in all its glory, the humming gust of cool air serenading us and all the other campers lucky enough to be already up at that time, and the heavenly smell of corned beef, noodles and hot chocolate filled my nostrils.
While we were eating breakfast, one of our comrades told us hearsays about a female camper who fell to her death while scaling the Rockies.
He said there was supposed to be marker for her, but we never found it.
As we started our descent, some of those with us said they're never going to go mountain hiking ever again, that they hated the mud on their faces, the tiring climb, the slippery trail.
They sounded dead serious, but somehow, I knew they were going to get over it.
I had only three climbs under my belt that day, but I already knew that my budding love affair with mountain hiking would only blossom even more.
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