Mt. Cinco Picos, Subic Zambales
31 March 2012
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| Jump-off point |
Cinco Picos (Spanish words meaning Five Peaks).
Long and exposed trail and hot weather that can drain ones energy down to the last drop and fantastic landscape views.
These are two major things that await every adventurer at Mt. Cinco Picos in Subic province of Zambales.
It was a rainy Friday in Manila when I decided to join a hike at Mt. Cinco Picos in Zambales. I was actually having a second thought in joining the hike because of the weather condition.
Onboard two private vans, we left Mc Donalds El Pueblo for Subic in Zambales at around 1AM. There were 18 of us. Julian, Darren and Lance were leading the hike.
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| Exposed trail |
We reached the town of Subic and registered at the municipal office at around 4:30AM. After registering at the municipal hall, we head on to the jump-off point.
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| River crossing |
We were a bit lost on our direction but finally, we were all at the jump-off point at around 7AM and prepared for the hike. We started hiking at around 7:30AM.
I was so excited because the weather at Subic was good. In fact, while inside the van, there was a very nice sunrise above Subic bay. While trekking, we were all amazed by the fantastic landscape views.
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| Mountain landscape |
The surrounding landscape looked like the summit of Mt. Pulag with the golden-colored grass. The trail is very nice. It is long and exposed with dried tall golden-colored Cogon grass covering both sides of the trail.
Since the trail is exposed, after an hour and a half of trekking, I started to feel the intense heat of the sun. If hikers shiver in the cold temperature at Mt. Pulag, we shivered in the intense heat of the sun along the exposed trail going to Mt Cinco Picos.
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| Cinco Picos ahead |
It was the hottest trail temperature that I ever experienced since I started climbing mountains. Most of us had to stop along the trail after every 30 minutes of walking to rehydrate and rest.
There was a portion of the trail that was burning when we arrived at a place near a small water stream. We all had to stop and observe. Many of us were a little worried about the fire knowing that dried Cogon grass and trees cover most of the trail and can ignite easily.
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| Trail covered with dried Cogon grass |
After 30 minutes, the smoke slowly disappeared and we started trekking. It was good. The fire did not progress. After about 4 hours of trekking under the intense heat of the sun, it started to turn cloudy and several dark clouds started to emerge in the sky and the wind started to get colder.
Most of us reached the summit (peak 1) of Cinco Picos by 1PM and had lunch.
The peak is small. After having lunch and rest, most of us decided to descend to a flat ground below the peak in order to give space for others to have lunch and enjoy the peak.
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| Overlooking Subic Bay |
At about 2PM, we had all descended to the flat ground and prepared to descend to the jump-off point. We had group photo ops. Just after having our group picture shots, it started to rain and it was a downpour.
We started our descent at 2:30PM. Four of us Julian included, were back to the jump-off point at 5PM. The second group were back to the jump-off point at around 5:45PM and last batch guided by Darren at around 7PM. We left Subic at around 7:30PM.
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