Extremely
enchanted by the multitude versions of Maria Makiling tales during my early
years in grade school, it was a huge personal dream to visit Mt. Makiling
ever since 2007. There were my grandfather’s repetitive stories of myths about the mountain every break I got to spend at home while having grandfatherly chats with him (which I
sorely miss right now), but I never managed to reach the peak until after I
graduated in 2012. But as they say, there’s always a right time for
everything – I eventually hiked Peak 2, not once
nor twice but four times! And still am expecting more climbs soon enough.
15 May 2011. My first official Mt. Makiling close encounter was at 6MBTE (six months before thesis existence) otherwise known as the calm before college storm. I was among a small group of bored people of UPLB
Chemokinesis deciding to hike up the famed Flat Rocks and Mudspring one weekend. It was relatively an easy trek with us
finishing both courses in half a day. Was also able to encounter Mt.
Makiling’s notorious limatiks for the first time on this hike. Afterwhich were other spontaneous follow-up Flat Rocks and Mudspring hikes since then, including that terrible Flat Rocks rainy trek sometime in 2012, the first time I faced legit hiking danger that which taught me one aspect of happiness; just like most other things, it sometimes
comes with a price. But it’s the price of risk that we should never be willing
to pay.
28 October 2013. The tenth mountain off my #13PeaksFor2013 Project was fortunately realized
through my first and official Mt. Makiling-Peak 2 climb. I had been climbing mountains
around Laguna and Batangas for a couple of months already during that year so I knew I had the best
pair of knees to fruitfully surmount the third highest peak in Luzon, at last.
However, it wasn’t the perfect weather there is, to begin with. The trails
were dark with occasional thunderstorms and rain showers casting off
the skies. While we clearly understood that Makiling was just normal like that
being a true tropical rainforest in its very essence, the clouds were just too
heavy, condensing every single time. As expected we were rain-soaked for
most parts of the trail. The view on top wasn’t something that would melt your face
away from your skull but the journey itself made the entire climb more than memorable enough. Indeed, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
15 November 2013. My next Mt. Makiling encounter was one of the most memorable hikes I
did thus far, which happened shortly after my first Peak 2 climb, a few weeks
after the onslaught of the Super-typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) which set Tacloban into looming despair. Together
with 22 tired but determined climbers, we climbed to extend our helping
hands (Read: this). A huge part of me was glad
upon reaching the peak for the second time – a place where all of us were exhausted, but definitely not unhappy.
31 January 2014. Sometime
during this date, I was uncertainly crawling at probably some of the lowest points in my
life – unmet expectations, quarter-life crisis, unnecessary pains I so thought mattered during that time. You know, we just unwillingly go through such moments of when-you-have-nothing-left-to-burn-you-have-to-set-yourself-on-fire
kind of shit. Luckily, Mt. Makiling served to be a temporary escape from
that crappy trap I fell onto at that time, joined by people willing to just, be there (endless thanks!). Looking back at such an era, couldn't help but laugh at how I let myself dig in and wallow over such crap. It's true, life is just unreasonably hard sometimes. But eventally we'll get by. We'll always do.
16 October 2014. While it’s true that I have different motivations (be it to dust off
anxiety attacks or simply celebrate small joys) for climbing Mt. Makiling (or
every other mountain, in general) over and over again, it still boils down to
the mountain’s densely canopied charm that draws my feet to it every single time.
It might be a mostly long boring stride for some, and the idea of foreverly walking
those same long muddy and rocky trails under those same shady boring trees, for
the second or third time is kind of redundant. But as they say, one doesn’t climb
the same mountain twice. And unless you try to climb a mountain more than once,
you’ll never understand that sweet and compelling truth for such.
