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| Mt. Cristobal hiding behind the clouds |
It's been a month since our Mt. Daguldol climb with AKAC and everyone in the group is already impetuous come November. Initially, we planned for an overnight climb but due to schedule conflicts, we just settled for a dayhike in Mt. Cristobal in Quezon via the Dolores trail. If you've been reading our previous posts about climbing with AKAC, you should know by now how fun and crazy is to be with them. Even with different age gaps, everyone gets along because the more "adults" are way more crazier than us the "young" ones. Haha!
Moving on, we took a bus bound to Lucena which dropped us off at San Pablo. Since other members are coming from the South, we just agreed to meet in Jollibee San Pablo (accross the church) where we had breakfast. We were complete at around 7AM and walked a few blocks down to San Pablo City Mall where the jeepney terminal is. We decided to charter a jeep to be sure that transportation will no longer be a problem on our way back. Tita Gina haggled with the driver and settled at P1,100 for 7 persons for a round trip ride.
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| Montelibano's House |
We continued our ascend at 9:20AM and was faced with a vast forest-like trail. Trees hovered above making a panoramic view impossible. Tree roots are also spread all throughout to help you pull yourself up as well. The trail is pretty much straight forward but with non - stop assaults. The dense forest made the temperature very refreshing too which enticed more breaks to catch our breath and savor the cool breeze. Mt. Cristobal is by far, the cleanest mountain I've ever been. It was not as littered as Mt. Maculot and Mt. Batulao. The serenity of the area didn't scare us. Others say there are some unknown elements here hence calling it the Devil's Mountain.
At around 989MASL, we saw moss-covered trees and the temperature dropped to 24 °Celsius. It was so relaxing that you would just want to lie down and sleep in one of the many rocks along the way. We came across a fallen tree which actually covered the supposed trail. A make shift trail confused us and we ended going up and down just to see that we just went around instead of going straight. Then we held on to tree roots and stepped on rocks to make our way to the other end not looking at the little ravine beyond our feet. My adrenaline was pumping at that time and I went ahead to assist Tita Weng. Careful and slow movements are a must in this part. Our moods changed to serious (except Tita Gina of course, love you tita haha!) when we realized we are over our target time and we had no clear sight of the summit. We had our lunch at the trail and decided that if we do not reach the summit within the next hour or so, we will abort and go back to avoid descending in the dark.
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| Highest point of our climb - 1360MASL |
It was a welcoming sight to see a trail going down to the crater. The land is flat, moist and the land is so soft. When it rains, water accumulates here making it like a small lake. Tents can be pitched here and I'm sure it gets cold at night as the temperature plunged into 23.7 °Celsius and that was just at 2:15PM. The summit is another 30 - minute assault from there. We saw the trail going up and we were heart-broken to realize that it was near yet so far as we considered the time we needed to go down. So we just took some pictures, refueled our bodies and started our descend. We divided our group into two so the first ones to reach the jump off can look for a place to wash up. The chances of reaching the jump off with the sun out are too slim. The way down was strenuous as we felt like chimpanzees hanging on to tree roots to support ourselves. We bumped into a lot of overnight campers on their way up. One said that their group was composed of 30 members. We met a lot of more people on our way down making me silently thank my group that we didn't stay for the night as I'm sure it will be a very crowded camp.
True enough, it was already dark (6:15PM) when we reached Brgy Sta Lucia. Our jeepney driver was already waiting for us in his friend’s house along the road offered also their house for wash up. They were so accommodating that they even granted heating up water for all of us for an extra fee. Like any of our previous climbs, we ended our trip with a sumptuous dinner in San Pablo city where our driver gladly obliged to take us. Food was not great but everyone was just hungry and tired to complain.
I'll just end this post with this famous quote by Edward Whymper:
"It's a round trip. Getting to the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory."
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