*For those that are interested, the photos here are downloadable for your use, you may refer to the download button at the sidebar to the right. Enjoy!
It was a Saturday night and the plan was just made a few days before, it was 4am and we gathered to get ready. It was time to take a hike on the mountain trail that is Manalmon at San Miguel, Bulacan.
The Three Hour Adventure
Meet up time of 4:30am (5am) was quite early for me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t early enough for the hike — or so we thought. The travel that was foreseen as 1 hour was stretched to a 3 hour road trip. It wasn’t bad as a passenger but as for the driver, I believe it’s a different story.
But as Tim stated, it pushed us less to sleeping and more to talking — which was great as I’ve gotten to know each of us with more detail.
The Climb Begins
The hike begins with crossing this wonderful bridge with a high view of the river, at the end there is a small community(?), a few of which consists of refreshments store, registration hall, restroom stalls and places to chill out, probably after a hike or if you decide to sleep overnight.
After, registration process which was done smoothly by none other than the lady who arranged it all, our friend Jikay, we proceeded to begin to climb a tall set of stairs towards the trail proper.
As you may have noticed from the bridge shot, it was quite gloomy that day, weather predictions said it would have showers, and it did. Fortunately, it didn’t last for long. Though the environment was nicely humid, the slippery mud and stones weren’t a plus to the experience. Nonetheless we proceeded towards the goal.
Thankfully, in the middle of the uphill heave of our legs, there was grass fields in between with level ground.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t reach the top because I didn’t have the right shoe to grip the coarse texture of the mountain. While it looked easy, the dangers of slipping down looked quite feasible, so I deferred so to much sound advice.
After we’ve reached the peak, the way down was easy. The sun started to shine, the mud started to dry and it wasn’t so hot either. By God’s grace, it was a good hike if we’re going to single that part out.
Overall it was a easy hike, considering I wasn’t prepared as much as the other hikers. I had shoes for cross fit which hampered some of my ability to climb easier on the rocky sections. We didn’t have any mobile signal on the location proper, so it was a good time spent alone with people and nature — what most of us miss but never come into terms in our everyday lives.
One thing I realized while climbing is wondering how to life proof my camera since there are so many shots I wanted to take but I couldn’t risk damaging my Fuji XT-10 due to rocky sections which I could potentially slip and hit a hard edge. A referral to a wonderful case would truly help.
Any ideas on where to buy one? My lens is 16mm f/14 by the way.
