Travel Journal 13-005: Tarak Ridge Dayhike

 I was on my ordinary day of work when I received an SMS from a friend back at highschool. The message is an invitation to climb a series of mountain destinations for 3 different schedules upcoming within a week. It is a Major climb that caught my attention fast, but as I checked the date, it was scheduled fast to the weekend of that week. Checking my schedule, I remembered that my girl wished to take a rest on that week, which makes my weekend free.

It was a midnight before the scheduled climb when we have agreed to meet up. At 12 noon, me and my highschool friend met up at a place near our homes, then we headed to the town central where we met another buddy. From there, we rode a bus going to the Manila bus station where we're supposed to meet another buddy. We arrived early, so we decided to look for a place to take a heavy meal so that we can survive the upcoming long dayhike.

After the meal, we then headed back to the terminal where we finally met the last member of the group. Then it's travel time. The road is quite bumpy due to constructions of roads we have to pass, making us unable to have a sleep during the long travel. Worried that it may affect my climb performance, I forced myself to sleep by closing both eyes and trying not to think of anything more. 

Ineffective, I transferred to a seat near one of our mates whom I borrowed his pad for a game. Then soon, the Brgy, Alas-asin. We descended the bus, took a stop at a 24-hour-tapsilogan nearby and secured an early breakfast (Don't ask, I know we ate too much!hahaha). I secured my packed lunch, but my colleagues are not fond of taking a lunch at the trails so they decided not. Before we go, we dropped by at the Brgy. hall to register. Next thing we know, we are trekking at the dark trail going to kubo since the sun hasn't showed up yet. After some minutes, we've reached the kubo where we had a few minutes of rest.

The sun is almost up as we head to our destination, Tarak Ridge. We met a group along the trail but as we pause for some pictures, they are long gone. Continuing the trek, I was stung by a bee which nests along the trail. Apparently, their hive were disturbed by the person I'm following, making them hot headed as I pass.

Long time of time have passed. The group is turning worried as we still can't hear a sound of flowing water despite the Papaya river is just  a two-hour-trek away. Added by the factor that the group that have long gone where not even met along the trail, but it just turned into a joke as there are only two possibilities, The other group was lost, or we were. "They are lost!Let's be positive. Hahaha" . We decided to fasten our pace to confirm our worries.

As we push through, we soon heard the water flow. Instead of joy, we turned to be much worried as we thought that it might be the sound of Paniquian Falls which is the other way around.

Luckily as we continue, our guess turned to be wrong as we found Papaya River instead along with its' campsite. From here, we continued our trek and soon found the real challenge that Tarak Ridge offers, the continuous ascending trail. 

As we continue, the steepness of the trail gradually increased, so as the exhaustion. Thus, making quite a challenge on the final leg of the assault, which turned to be an open trail plus a loosen-soil-trail. After different styles and techniques, we finally made it to the campsite where, despite of exposure to the heat, majority of us took our chance to take shots of the moment. Then, we continued to the upper part of the camp where we encountered a large group of fogs passing by. As we observed them, the fogs ascended to pass the fog, the descent back to it's original elevation. The scene is quite breath taking, making us stay a little longer.

After some minutes of observing the fogs, the group then decided to continue to the peak. The trail still bears the challenge of the loosed soil, although they are not as much as before. Finally, we've reached the peak. We took some pictures from different sides of the peak, before we decided to stay at the small forest in the middle of the peak, took our lunch and took a little nap.

Soon, we headed back to the ridge and saw a unresistingly nice view. Another pause causes our delay, but it was then compensated by a very fast pacing descent. 

We are almost at the jumpoff when we passed by a store that sells hardboiled egg. Our hunger forced us to stop for awhile before continuing to the jumpoff.

Finally, the jumpoff! We fast took our dinner and barely took our washout, as we are targeting to take the last trip of the bus. Fortunately, despite of a long travel, we still managed to get to our home before another day came.

See Photos in Facebook.

BUDGET CHECK (As of March 2013)

*Fare from and to Brgy. Alas-asin via bus bound to Bataan (Php 267x2=Php 534)

*Foods, can be shared by group for around Php 100-200.

Total: Php 734.00