Weekend Warrior: Climbing Mt. Nagcarlan

I received an invitation a couple of weeks ago for a daytrip climb at Mt. Nagcarlan in Laguna from some of my mountaineer friends and I readily accepted it. The climb was last Saturday (Aug 25th). Geland, one of my colleagues, joined me and since we were already in the vicinity, he suggested that we do some sightseeing at the nearby towns of Nagcarlan and Liliw after the mountain trek.

The two of us left Batangas at four-thirty in the morning of Saturday and took a bus to Calamba. A couple of jeepney rides and 2-1/2 hours later, we were at the town of Calauan to meet up with the rest of the climbers.

Mt. Nagcarlan is a little under 700 meters in elevation and is a level 1 climb. However, the trails were muddy and slippery because of the rainy season. That and the lack of a breeze made the ascent quite difficult for our group. Also, I've gained about 6 pounds since my last climb activity -- I could feel my 'extra weight' making its toll on my physical condition.

We started from the jump-off point at around 730 in the morning. The first half hour was a relatively easy hike, afterwhich the slope gradually increased. An hour later, we encountered our first major problem: someone in the group was forced to abandon the climb because he was feeling dizzy. After some discussion, the group decided to leave him at a waystation and come back for him later in the afternoon when we descend.

The next two hours of hiking was pretty hard and challenging. Firstly, the slope was becoming more steep and the trail was becoming more slippery. Secondly, the pace that we were trying to maintain is a challenging one. We had to take 4 breaks during the ascent to allow some members of the group to regain their breaths.

As for myself, I had one predicament during the climb: I didn't expect that the sun would be out that day. I thought that it would be cloudy at best, rainy at worst, so I only brought 3 liters of fluids for my personal consumption. By the time we reached the summit, I've nearly emptied my Camelbak. Good thing that other members of the group had water to spare.

We reached the summit at 1130 am. We got a great view of the 7 lakes that Laguna is very famous for. A wooden cross marks the summit and we decided to have lunch there.



Going down, all of us had to brace our footing to prevent slipping and sliding down the trail. I slipped four times (haha!) and landed squarely on my butt once. Ouch. We passed by the waystation where we left one of our group behind, and he was okay.

I enjoyed the climb. Even with the aching legs, sunburnt shoulders and scratches on my arms. =)

[pictures to follow]