Hike to Mount Batolusong, Antipolo Rizal

Together with my highschool friends, we set March 14-15, 2015 to hike Mt. Batolusong in Antipolo, Rizal out of urges from our experienced mountaineer friend Gonzalo. I’ve always wanted to go hiking and I’ve found my possies!

We met up at Mcdonald’s at the LRT Station in Cubao around 7 AM. We left at around 8:30 and rode an FX just outside going to Cogeo (fare: Php35). You can also ride jeepneys going there. It’s around a 30 minute ride from Cubao to Cogeo and we reached the place around 10 AM. We stopped there for a while to double check items of each of us such as water, packed lunch (we plan to eat lunch on the trail) and to buy groceries for dinner up in the summit. We will be staying overnight.

 

Once everything is checked, we rode a jeep going to Batangas, Brgy. Sampaloc (fare: Php42.00). It’s around an hour of jeepney ride.

Once we’ve reached Batangas, we rode a habal-habal (fare: 30) to Brgy. San Andres to the registration site.

Once we’ve arrived it was around 11 AM and so we decided to eat our lunch at the registration area (registration fee:Php20) and pre-cook the meat for dinner later.

At around 1 PM, we set foot together with our 2 guides (required: 1 guide per group of 5).

 

The hike was long, about 4 hours. It was tiring, it was steep and it was exciting.

This is my first time to hike a mountain and the experience was everything I expected it to be.

 

I admit I underestimated the effort of hiking a mountain, it’s just the pictures I see by some of my friends whose done hiking, they look so peaceful and not at all tired.

We reached the summit at around 5 PM just in time for the sunset. We lay there for a couple minutes before setting up the tent.

 

After the tents were set up we started cooking our dinner, sisig, rice and adobong sitaw.

 

Together with the heavy winds on top of the mountain and the poor lighting provided with just the moon and our flashlights, it was very rewarding to finally eat. After that we just lay there, passing shots and gazing upon the stars and they were beautiful. I’ve never seen the sky like this full of twinkling lights.

 

It was time to go to bed says the blazing wind. It was getting stronger and colder by the minute and I was shivering despite the number of clothing I have on me. I took a mental note that if I do this again I better be prepared with more clothes on.

We woke up the morning after and started with our food.

You can’t buy moments like this. The feeling at the top of the world and just sinking in all the greens and nature. It was pretty peaceful. It was an incredible feeling. I admit I forgot it was Monday the following day.

Soon enough it was time to go down. We didn’t go back the way we started. Instead, we took a little detour to wash up Kay-ibon Falls.

It’s small and hidden and pretty much like what you’ll see in fairytales where fairies breed. The water is cold and very refreshing. From the falls, it was only a 20 minute hike to the highway.

 

At around 2 PM we were at the highway waiting for a jeep going to Cogeo and back home. Who says lying down on the sidewalk while waiting for a jeep and probably kind of dozed out to sleep for a minute or two is not part of the itinerary?

 

This was my first time hiking any mountain after trekking Hibok-Hibok and surely this wouldn’t be the last.