Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in Warrior Pilgrimage on February 7, 2011


FOR FIVE STRAIGHT weekends, I was frozen in my workplace and family. My mind is somewhere else but my butt is glued to my office chair and the living room couch until a slight breakthrough came in on September 19, 2010. Previous to those weeks, I thought I need to explore a trail I found somewhere in the fringes of the Buhisan Watershed Area.

Two presets of alarm went past unnoticed. And as the heat of the day ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on September 8, 2010

I HAVE BEEN LUSTILY eyeing the trail that lead down into the Buhisan Watershed Area everytime I passed by the Portal on my way to Napo. This trail came into my attention when I discovered a route starting from Guadalupe to Napo in Sapangdaku, all in Cebu City, during an exploration last January 10, 2010 which gave birth to Bebut's Trail.

And so, on May 2, 2010, I gathered enough courage to penetrate the thick ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on August 8, 2010

IT IS THE MIDDLE of summer, April 18, 2010. The hillsides are brown and the creeks are dry. Camp Red, meanwhile, is in training mode. The mainstays – Boy Toledo, Ernie Salomon and I – are towing a trio of bushcrafter wanna-bes – Niño Dizon, Dave Uy and Brady Betonio. Tailing along is Wil Davies (aka Jungle Wil) of Jungle Wild Adventures.

The route is Bebut's Trail, a beautiful trail that I have discovered on ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on July 8, 2010

FOLLOWING UP ON my February 28, 2010 complete exploration of the last stretch of Bebut's Trail, a route which start from the back of the Our Lady of Guadalupe de Cebu Parish that I discovered on January 10, I brought Boy Toledo, Ernie Salomon and Glen Domingo on May 21 to assess for themselves the condition of the route.

Glen D brought with him his coffee maker and we brewed coffee in a small upland community ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on June 22, 2010

I AM ALONE today, February 28, 2010. I am going to the house of my young friend, Manwel Roble, above Napo but below Mount Babag to deliver two kilos of sweet and delicious fruits – the mangosteen and the lanzones. I have a purpose with the seeds of the fruit and it is for a noble cause. I aim to reforest the bare Upper Kahugan Trail whose madre de cacao trees where cut wholesale. Manwel and his family will nurture the seeds ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on June 8, 2010

A WEEK AFTER my exploration of an unnamed trail on January 10, 2010, I invited Boy Toledo and Ernie Salomon to assess for themselves this newly-discovered route. Nathan Cannen, who went with me on that day as my official photographer, invited Myla Ipil. The trio are eager to try the trail and my flu is not a hindrance to deny them this privilege.

As always, we start from the back of the Our Lady of Guadalupe de ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on May 24, 2010

I FIND IT BOTHERSOME walking my hiking shoes on paved roads. The shoes are expensive and the lugs wear out easily. You have to need those lugs to dig deep in the dirt trail to keep your footing stable. As much as possible, you have to preserve the soles and walking on a concrete and asphalt road wouldn't help any.

The road from Guadalupe to Napo, our jump-off point for Mount Babag, is a paved road and every two ...