Mt. Pulag Friendship Climb

I joined the 5th Friendship climb to Mt. Pulag organized by Sir Jovi from Adventurista Camping trip. Since we were around 50 participants from Manila, he hired a tour bus to bring us from Manila (Crossing in Shaw) to Baguio. We left Manila around 10PM and were in Bagauio around 3AM. We were picked up by the hired jeepneys at the gasoline station accross Victory Liner in Baguio. And before we knew it, we were on our way to Mt. Pulag!

But we had to stop by at this restaurant for our breakfast and packed lunch:

Before we went our way, some of the participants wanted to try the "Top Load" so they positioned themselves at the top of the jeepney.

 And off we go.... Next stop was the DENR where we listened to the orientation on the do's and don'ts while at the camp site and the summit.


After the orientation, we then headed to the ranger's camp. Here are some of the pictures on the way to the Ranger's Camp:

At the Ranger's Camp, we ate our lunch before starting the trek towards the camp site:



And the trek starts here




Spring water



Going up to campsite

When we arrived at the campsite, we had to set our tent. Since we were so tired, we took some pictures of the view then slept and waited for the food to be cooked. Haha.

Setting up the tents at the Camp Site



Lovely grassland


 We woke up around 3AM to eat some noodles as preparation for the climb to the summit. At around 3:30AM, we were gathered for a brief orientation before we started the trek. It was good that I brough my flashlight. It was really useful during the climb since it was so dark and all we can see were the lights from the other participants.


On the way to the summit

After an hour of trekking, we finally got to the summit and it was almost sunrise. We were lucky we saw the sea of clouds. The view was just breath-taking:


My first sea of clouds



A panoramic view





Beautiful





Here comes Mr. Sun

Since we were able to witness the great view and it was becoming too cold for us, we decided to go back to the camp site:

On the way back to camp site

 Some of the wonderful grasslands we saw on the way back to site:

From the camp site, we were able to see the mountains we had to pass by to get to the summit. Just look at how far the summit it!

When we got down to the ranger's camp, some of us took a bath there. The others waited till we get to Ate Gina's place to refresh. After that, we had lunch at Ate Gina's Restaurant (the same place we had breakfast the day before).

Before finally going back to Baguio, we had a quick stop at the Ambuklao dam for a quick picture taking and distribution of the certificates from DENR.

 The Pulag experience is a memorable one. The climb, the temperature, the new friends, the over all experience was just priceless.

Hope more Filipinos get to experience this too.