10 Sept 2016
It was a gloomy Saturday and once again four of us were on the road for another adventure. We were heading to Los Banos in the province of Laguna to be with Mt. Makiling.
We were supposed to do a MAKTRAV (Makiling Traverse) from San Bartolome in Sto. Tomas Batangas to Los Banos Laguna via the Palanggana Trail however, due to the weather condition, we decided to do a back trail instead at UP Los Banos. I also heard a news that the Palanggana Trail had been closed already since 2014.
With me were three of my usual trek-mates - Janice, Michael and Jeannie. Everyone was excited to hike up to Station 30, the highest peak of Mt. Makiling.
The jump-off point is approximately 66 km from Duty Free Mall in Paranaque and 1H 29M drive without traffic. We left the office at 0500H and then had breakfast at Cafe France at a gas station along SCTEX.
We reached the registration office inside UP Los Banos at 0820H and prepared for the hike.
After registration, we started walking along the pavement leading to the foot of Mt. Makiling at 0853H.
I immediately noticed the concrete road leading to the Agila Base. In 2012, it was just a rough road.
There were several ongoing road works at that time and according to our guide, the road widening and paving project will cover the stretch from the registration office to Agila Base and when completed, the jump-off point may be transferred permanently to the Agila Base already.
We walked for approximately 8km from the registration office to Agila Base. We had a quick refreshment along the way before officially taking the trail to Station 30.
At 1118H, we reached Agila Base and had a short break. At this time it started to drizzle and sky was dark. This is where I had an encounter with a leech (limatik). I knew that there would be many of them as the area was wet.
We started our trek from Agila Base at 1136H. It was raining and as expected, there was also a rain of limatiks.
We were wearing our rain coats and somehow it shielded us from atleast 40 limatiks falling to us from elsewhere.
Makiling trail is inside a thick forest. I was so happy to see again for the third time the century old trees.
Many of my favorite photo subjects were there and I enjoyed taking closeup photos.
At 1258H, we reac hed Station 20. Janice and Michael decided to trail back while Jeannie and I decided to continue the trek.
The trail was wet and slippery. It was still raining and limatiks are everywhere. At 1335H, we reached Station 24 and had a quick rest.
We took the road segment of the trail and also climbed up the bamboo ladder to the upper trail.
Finally at 1443H, we were at Station 30, the highest peak of Mt. Makiling. We had our lunch at the peak and then started our descent at 1500H.
As we went down the trail, there were more limatik attacks and was still raining.Finally, we were back at the jump-off point at 1755H.
Along our way back to Manila, we decided to reward ourselves with crispy Bagnet!
--o0o--
