02 February 2013 | Los Banos, Laguna
To be very honest, this wasn’t a real climb to some extent. It was more of a strolling kind of hike on that particular hill a stone away from UPLB grounds. It took us just around fifteen minutes to
reach the summit from the jump-off and nearly zero sweat to sum it up. In fact, previous climbers who went up the
hill were a group of kindergarten kids as part of their PE course, I mean wth? :)
Contrary to the usual drill, I
wasn’t with my regular climb-mates on that day. Rather, I was with a few friends
who were not really interested in climbing I think. I am afraid I might have forced them to do this. And it goes without saying that their effort is highly appreciated for tolerating my then mountain-madness.
Before
the sunrise, we decided to meet at some point near the UP Gate and waited for
others to come. From there, we had a long walk over the campus to reach the
jump-off point somewhere in Putho-Tuntungin.
Fast-forward,
we reached the summit in a blink of an eye, the whole thing just happened so abruptly. Though, the trail shouldn’t be
underestimated because of the relatively slippery assault. After
a few minutes of rest, sightseeing, and photo sessions, we started to descend. We took the alternate route back to
campus and had our breakfast in IRRI before finally heading home. We also rode the famous trolley which was my first time.
Photo by J. Cardenas
