Nature-ral High

Nature-ral High
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail

July 25, 2008

Mt. Palong (Exploration)

I went to Initao, Misamis Oriental (capital of misamis is Cagayan de Oro, btw) last weekend to attend a wake. After the interment we still have 2 days left before heading back to manila. After checking our schedule, we noticed that the afternoon of Saturday was free. We decided to go to the farm and do a little bit of hiking. A series of mountain ranges (not so high) can be seen when you reached the farm. According to our companions this mountain can be climb and had been climbed by the locals. Although no offical exploration has been done and no name was given. Since we still have a few hours left before it gets dark, we decided to climb it.
This mountain is similar to Mt. Batulao, less to no trees can be seen. Its a good thing we climbed late in the afternoon plus there is lots of cloud or else its really gonna be like Mt. Batulao which is very very hot during the day. Considering its rarely been climbed, there is no established trail. You have to pass through knee to waist deep cogon grass along the way. The ground is composed of loose soil and small rocks, this made the trek a bit difficult.
My watch registered 450 masl upon reaching the summit. We name the summit Lilang's peak ( the name of the deceased). And the mountain ranges Mt. Palong which is the name of the farm. Since the trek up is very steep, going down, our guide brought us to a different trail. Its a bit of a rolling trail but of course is much longer than the way up. It would be much harder to go down the same way we went up, it will really hurt our knees.
We reached back at the jump off after more than 2 hours of trekking. Its a bit fast because we are carrying less to almost no load.
If Im just living near this place, maybe I could established this mountain as a hiking destination. More like of Mt. Daguldol setup. Guides are mandatory so that the locals will earn a living and since they earn they will protect the mountain. More like a symbiosis between man and nature. There is less impact on the environment and everyone is happy.





The ever popular mountain jumpshot.



2 comments:

  1. Where is this exactly ser, and can you please provide a guide contact? thanks.

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  2. It's located in Bansilang, Initao, Misamis Oriental.

    The mountain is explored but is rarely climbed. There is no established trails, and no guiding system.... yet.

    Sorry but I dont have any guide contact, it just so happen that when I visited the place I got the urged to climbed it.

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