Outdoors

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 ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on May 15, 2010

TODAY IS THE DAY! Me and Boy Toledo arrived first in the early morning of January 2, 2010 at JY Square in Lahug, Cebu City. Then Nathan Cannen arrived in his Isuzu Crosswind with Ernie Salomon and Myla Ipil on board and last to arrive is Jun Chan – a Citibank junior executive and upstart road runner.

We are here because we are going to climb Mount Mauyog, a mountain which I mentioned in my earlier article on ...

Featured at www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on May 1, 2010

THE SUN SPIKED HOT today, December 27, 2009. I am with old buddy – Boy Toledo; two people from Kompay Lakaw Mountaineers – Nathan and Myla; and a junior bank executive – John Chan.

It had not rained today and it is a good day to introduce John to trail hiking. We deem it unnecessary to rest along the trail until after we have reached the river crossing where there is a water spring. We arrived at the place at 8:15 ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on April 15, 2010

IT IS A COLD early Sunday morning of December 20, 2009 and I braved the even colder water offered in my bathroom. I am, at last, free from being a slave with office work and the chance to stretch my leg muscles again is most welcome. My hawk feathers will hang again from my head and they will dance in the breeze.

Well, Ernie Salomon would be with me today and that satisfies my requirement of good company for ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on March 15, 2010.

THERE IS A PROMISE of a hot day today, October 4, 2009, as me and my guest, Wil Rhys Davies aka CochiseRattlesnake, walked the concrete-and-asphalt road at 8:15 AM from Guadalupe to Napo. Will is a Welsh national who opted to live here in Cebu and put up an adventure-tour business – Jungle Wild Adventure, Inc. He had been living in Banilad since February and we crossed paths at the Tap Room of the Gustavian Restaurant on ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on January 22, 2011

I STARED AT THE far expanse of the metropolis and all its neighboring islands as I stood on the ridge of the Babag Mountain Range. It's just another regular Sunday for me hiking alone on the trails. It is September 6, 2009 and this is my twenty-fifth session here. Oh, I just arrived yesterday from Iloilo, crossing two bodies of water – the Guimaras and Tañon straits – and a whole day of travelling by bus over the great Panay ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on January 1, 2010

IT HAD BEEN A year already when I first climbed Mount Babag by way of Ernie's Trail, a steep and challenging route named after my climbing buddy – Ernie Salomon. That was on August 17, 2008. Since then I have climbed her twenty-three times alone or with a group. I aim to complete a full year cycle by climbing her again on August 23, 2009. This would be my twenty-fourth incursion there.

I brought two hawk feathers ...