Mt. Pulag: a test of character (conclusion)

day 3: 3 am, wake up call.

no one woke up on time, and yes, we were able to sleep despite the continous pounding of the wind as if someone's knocking on our tent.

and it did not rain, though it felt like it did.

4:30 am, i don't know what's up with me, but again, just like in day two, i was the first one to wake up. and unlike in day two, i did not make any big movements to wake up the others. i open the tent and peek outside but can't see a thing! goodness, the fog! i looked for my headlamp and my clumsy movements woke up my tentmates. ooops, i did it again hehehe.

moments later, while they're still scrambling inside, i stepped outside and the light coming out of my headlamp can only penetrate a few meters of darkness, the fog looks everything blurry! and the wind to be honest was a bit scary.

from the looks of everything, experiencing the much awaited sunrise and the famous sea of clouds in pulag summit is getting dimmer and dimmer by the minute, like the fog's burying them. i am starting to lose hope, i even reserved two pairs of extra batteries just for that, and now, this. sigh.

since we cannot do anything about the weather, and we have an itinerary to follow (and we're already at least an hour behind it), we have to go on with life (drama hehe). we did our assigned responsibilities, i did the tent and them the cooking. we tried to move as fast as we could but the fog, which was similar to a drizzle but it's not, was slowing our movements and the wind was like playing on our things. i had fun chasing anything blown by the wind (ambabaw ko no?) but had a hard time with the tent. hay naku, ilipad ba naman habang tinitiklop ko?!

and everything that was exposed to the fog was wet!

our breakfast of hotdog, porkchop and fried rice were like wet hotdog, wet porkchop and wet friend rice, and our coffee was hot on the first sip and then cold on the next. the good thing about the fog? libre hilamos na hehehe.

some of the senior members went ahead to the summit to prepare for the induction rite. after we made sure everything's okey (no trash around, no garbage, nothing and no one's left), we let our excited feet run-walk towards the summit. but running is not advisable (ewan ko ba naman sa amin hehe) as you will run out of breath because of the elevation and the fog and the wind.

a few minutes later, i am just a few steps away from the summit, and the senior members are there waiting for us, clapping and congratulating us. i dashed the remaining steps and from there, the feeling of satisfaction was evident with all the smiles plastered on everyone's faces!

WE MADE IT!

it feels like we won something! "yes!" was the most abused word for the day, and why not? if there's a word that describes what we feel that moment aside from "we made it", then it's yes! yes, indeed!

as the celebration subsided and the endless jubilant pictorials mellowed, we were inducted. how? secret. hehehe. welcome to the mountaineering community.

the celebration would have been orgasmic had there been a clearing, but fog is all we see.

and from the summit to our way down, save from some view, fog was all we see. but aside from not experiencing that supposedly wonderful sunrise, we have nothing to complain and in fact we're all smiling and satisfied with what we accomplished, the compliment from our guide that we did a very good pace for Akiki-Ambangeg trails puts a little yabang in our hearts.

as i walk to the sides of the mountain, i look back at mt. pulag and promised myself that i'll be back. it was hard and tiring and all other adjectives that described exhausting, but no matter what, definitely, i'll be back.