Considered to be one of
the toughest mountain to climb in the Philippines, White Peak is known for its
surreal mossy forest, unequal sea of clouds and a spectacular summit views. Mountaineers
will surely like the challenge of this mountain because a certainty of a blockbuster
climb is on a making when toughness and beauty are combined.
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| White Peak Summit Campsite |
1st Day (Oct 28, 2011): The Night Trek Challenge
Our group arrived at New Bataan, Compostela Valley past 11 in the morning. We then went directly to the municipal tourism office, had our registration and secured all necessary things for the 3 days climb. We headed to the
jump-off after our quick lunch via a skylab, a local name for a habal-habal that carries 4 to 5 passengers. The ride was really scary. The road to the jump-off was so rough and rolling but our habal habal just burst its way down and up dangerously. It is really unsafe but exciting too.
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| Our transport service (Skylab Habal-Habal) |
Our hike started at 2 in the afternoon passing by a coffee plantation, a river trekking for almost one and half hour and then climb up to the muddy trail all the way to the last water source. Everyone
loaded for extra water here but then our guide insisted that we set an
emergency camp near the water source because it was already too late to push our
way up to Camp 1. Our team didn't like the idea so we decided that we continue our
trek and strongly asked our guide to push through since it was just 4 in the
afternoon. Almost two hours later, our two porters complained that they can’t
continue because they didn't have a headlamp. Luckily, two of our astute guys
brought extra lamps so everyone were lighted up.
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| Bamboo Bridge |
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| The river trail |
From then on, the trails were all assault, mostly scrambling and a 4x4 climb with a lot of obstacle
course. The highlight here was the huge and fresh landslide that we negotiated in the dark. The descent was very
steep with a lot of loosed rocks then an equally steep climb upward by just
randomly holding on to the firmed rocks. This is the most dangerous part and
thanked God everyone were safe. After the landslide, we resumed our climb deep into the forest and close to 8 in the evening, we rested briefly because everyone were already hungry. The whole team and our porters shared some of our trail foods to get enough energy to move forward. Almost an hour later, we arrived at the rappelling section. Here is the part where climbers rappelled
one by one upward because of the danger of falling rocks that can seriously hit
the next climber below. After this section, it was all assault again with
mostly 4x4 climb. Close to ten in the evening, we finally arrived at Camp 1.
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| White Peak... view along the trail to Camp 1 |
2nd Day (Oct 29, 2011): Summit Sunset Surprise
We woke up late on our
second day because we do not have enough water to cook for our breakfast and of
course we slept late. All of us actually shared the foods that were left the
other night just to fill our stomach. We started our trek at 8 in the morning with a mostly assault trails... Halfway to Peak 1, there was an opening on the trail… a view
deck. We rested here for a while to get a good look at the beautiful views below then resumed our trek inside the jungle were the mosses are getting denser as
we get higher. Past 10 in the morning, we arrived at Peak 1. We then cooked our
food and stayed here for almost an hour and half.
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| Camp 1 |
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| AF at the view deck |
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| Gecarl at Peak 1 |
Staying at Peak 1 longer
was actually a chilling experience. After we filled our stomach, we commenced
our assault and this time we aimed to reach Peak 2 before the sun sets. More
than an hour later, our group arrived at the second rappelling section. The rappel
here is longer and goes through the side of summit ridge rock face. Only one
climber is allowed to rappel at a time for safety. After the rappel section, an
opening can be seen from a distance. A few minutes later,
we arrived at the mountain's summit ridge. The view? Just simply spectacular! The sea of clouds, the awesome ridge line below and the lower mountain
ranges were just so nice to behold. We
stayed here a little longer for photo ops and to savor the great panorama.
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| Summit ridge |
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| Sea of Clouds |
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| White Peak's ridge line trail |
We resumed our hike passing by a thick mossy forest. The mosses here are so dense! The place was so
unreal! I would say that White Peak mossy forest is the best of them all... Almost 30 minutes after the mossy
experience, we arrived at the highest point of Mt Pandadagsaan… but hey! This isn't the Peak 2 yet. We went down to the AVATAR-like mossy forest again
wherein every steps we took were like walking on the fantasy land. After
the amazing experience inside the forest, Peak 2 came to into full view... As I stepped around
the summit, I can’t really explained my feelings… exciting, enjoyable, fulfilling, you name it! White Peak’s
famous 360 degrees summit is so beautiful... And mind you, it was just 2 in the
afternoon and the sun was still up. We got a lot of time to relax and enjoy.
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| White Peak's surreal mossy forest |
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| Mossy forest |
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| Peak 2 |
After fixing our tent
and taking a nap, we went up to the summit again for sunset viewing. Our camp
site was just 30 meter below within the bonsai forest. It was already 5 in
the afternoon. The color of the western horizon
slowly turned to flaming red with a mix of orange, white and blue. It was the
best sunset that I witness in my hiking career so far. Close to 6pm, a group of four mountaineers could be seen below the summit
ridge with their headlamps ON. We were wondering who these people were because
we were the only group of mountaineers that were registered on our 1st day at the tourism office. We found out later that the 3 mountaineers were from
Davao plus a porter and they just started their hike around 8 in the morning. It means they climb the mountain in just 1 day while our group had it in 2 days. Nice for them… we’ll do it in our
traverse climb next time. I envy you guys!
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| Summit view |
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| High Conquerors |
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| Gecarl at the summit (Peak 2) |
3rd Day (Oct 30, 2011): A Wet, Misty and Long Descent
I woke up early to cook
for our breakfast but our morning wasn't good. It was windy with a mixed of moist
and fog… a misty morning actually. A sunrise viewing could have been great but
the thick clouds obstructed the views. I still got a chance to capture the
morning views as the clouds momentarily clear for a few minutes but most of the
time it was windy and misty. After our breakfast, we broke camp then started
our descent at 8 in the morning. Everyone were actually expecting a very long 3rd
day since we have to go down to the jump-off in just a day to a trail we climbed
for 2 days! We reached Camp 1 before 12 noon, had our lunch in a misty, rainy
and chilling environs with a lot of limatiks then continued our descent in a
non-stop rain until we reached the river. It was close to 5pm and the rain
already stopped. Our porters were ahead of us and it was slowly getting darker.
Somewhere along the river trail, one of the porters waited for us… whew, what a
sigh of relief. The trail was actually getting unfamiliar and none of us had a hint where to go next! We passed by several
farmlands, crossed the bamboo bridge then finally, after a long descent, we arrived at the jump-off at almost 7pm.
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| A misty summit |
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| Campsite view as clouds momentarily open |
This was supposed to be
a double suicide climb which includes Mt Candalaga in our itinerary. But due to
the pain caused by the almost unending descent at White Peak, I did not pushed
through with our second climb. Congrats to Ian, Jux and Luigi for a successful
double suicide climb.
High Conquerors White Peak Climb Participants:
1. Ian Tan- Chief Strategist
2. Gecarl Binongo
3. Krezen Angeles
4. Allan Dela Cruz
5. Jastin Patacsil
6. Luigey Teodoro
More photos:
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| Into the Avatar-like mossy forest |
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| Seaweed-like mosses |
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| Gecarl... enjoying the mosses |
Until my next adventure… GOD Bless!
