Jay, the climb organizer, was optimistic about the weather during the pre-climb briefing last Wednesday. But, as I was packing for the climb on Friday, Rosan forwarded me a text from him that said to expect some rain.

Still, we were optimistic. There was no forecast of any tropical depression nor were there any storm warnings.

Attending the briefing on Mount Pulag at the DENR Office in Benguet. That’s Victor, Eveline, me, Rosan and Marge. (Photo c/o Rosan.)

It was obvious that it had been raining, however, and the drive from the Office of the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) in Benguet to the Ranger’s Station took much longer than expected as, one by one, the jeepneys headed for the mountain had trouble climbing the steep, muddy roads.

[IMAGE: IMG_5872 | http://www.gaiolivares.com/.a/6a01538e92ee33970b016301b96ebe970d-800wi]Eveline gets back into the jeepney. Riding on top are Don and Jay (obstructed by Don).

We thought we were too heavy and had to get down several times and hike up while the jeepney repeatedly tried to ascend. Then it was decided that the jeepney was too light so the boys got back on, and jumped up and down on the back of the jeepney to make it heavier and give the rear wheels more traction. At a particularly steep incline, another jeepney attached chains to us to drag us up.

The driver throws dirt and rocks into the gaping holes in an attempt to “smoothen” the road. (Believe it or not, it worked.)

To make up for time lost, we didn’t stay long at the Ranger’s Station. The breakfast place we had stopped at earlier served pretty disgusting food and, since we had gotten our lunches from the same place, none of us were particularly inspired to eat. So we just repacked our backpacks and sent off all the heavy stuff with the porters, then set off on the climb.

While the trail was relatively easy, it was still exhausting enough to leave us breathless. Halfway through, I felt light-headed and was almost sure I would pass out. “Taxi!” I yelled out. I wondered if the porters were strong enough to lug me up the mountain.

Apart from me, Rosan was able to round up three others to join the climb, all of them, coincidentally, lawyers: Eveline (Dutch), Victor (Korean) and Marge (Filipino). Together with the rest of Jay’s group, we were about 16 in all, but the five of us stuck together. We climbed pretty quickly and made such good time that we reached the campsite at 4 PM, two hours ahead of schedule.

There, out in the open, the rain was really coming down and the wind whipped at us from all directions. We found some tents already set up but none of them belonged to Jay’s group. The porters pointed to an area much higher up. That was where we were supposed to camp.

If we thought the conditions were nasty where that first group had set up, it was even worse higher up. First of all, the climb was much steeper and more slippery than the trail we had just left. And the rain and the wind were even more unmerciful.

We found a few of the guys from Jay’s group at the top, struggling with the first tent. One of them yelled at me, “Where’s your tent?” I told him Jay was supposed to bring it and that it was supposed to be the biggest one he had. “Okay, this is it then.” Then they shiveringly went about setting up the other tents while we got out of the rain into our tent.

Because there were five of us, Jay had assigned us the roomiest tent. It was big enough to stand in. Except that it was set up on a slope so that we kept slipping. The tent was also leaking and the ground cover was soaking wet. Before long, everything that we had was either damp or wet.

Victor and Eveline were not amused by our accommodations. Check out the angle of our tent.

We were so cold and miserable that as soon as we had set up our sleeping bags, we refused to go out and settled in for the night.

I had borrowed an extra sleeping bag from Eveline to put underneath my main sleeping bag as a cushion from the ground. It turned out to be one of those old-school first-edition sleeping bags, big enough to contain the other sleeping bag. I thought I could sleep inside both bags for better insulation. Except that old-school also meant pre-waterproofing and, sure enough, it immediately soaked up the ground water like a sponge.

It was going to be a very long night…

With five of us stuffed into the tent, packed in like sardines, my claustrophobia kicked in and I struggled with anxiety attacks the whole night. It’s a good thing that Rosan, Victor and Eveline slept like logs and my non-stop fidgeting didn’t disturb them. At least, they didn’t let on that it did which was very kind of them. When I wasn’t cold, I was hot and removed my layers. At some point, my damp trousers chilled me to the bone so I had to strip down to my underwear.

Marge seemed to be having trouble sleeping as well and that, at least, distracted me from my woes. She kept slipping downwards so I’d pull up her sleeping bag then help her get settled into it.

As the night wore on, more and more campers kept arriving. I wondered how much our tiny little peak could hold. The other campers were noisy and, although they were annoying, they did serve as added distraction and amusement for me as I took note of their activities and little dramas.

There was some guy cooking broccoli in a tent nearby. He yelled at people to bring them in, to chop them up, and then eventually to eat the damned things. There didn’t seem to be too many takers. I guess broccoli wasn’t enough incentive to traipse out into the rain for.

This particular exchange cracked me up:

Cook: Amor? (Amor?)

Amor: Po? (Sir?)

Cook: Kain na kayo. (Please eat now.)

…

Cook: Amor?

Amor: Po?

Cook: Kain na kayo.

…

Cook: Amor?

…

Cook: Amor! Na saan na ba yang si Amor? Amor! (Amor! Where the hell is Amor? Amor!) Nandito ba si Amor? (Is Amor here?) O, Amor, nan dyan ka pala, ba’t hindi ka sumasagot?! (Oh, there you are, Amor. Why haven’t you been answering?!) Pinapanginig mo pa ako dito. (You had to make me shiver out here.) Ayan, kumain kayo! (There, go and eat.) Pero ibalik mo ‘yan. (But you’d better bring that back.)

Amor: Ha??? <Amor clearly did not relish the thought of having to step out into the cold to return the container of broccoli that she didn’t want in the first place.

Cook: At ‘wag mong ubusin lahat! (And don’t finish it all!)

I could hear the cook go back into his tent, grumbling about Amor. If he had a door to slam, I’m sure he would have slammed it. (“And stay out!”)

Jay also yelled at us to come and get our dinner but we refused to come out. We yelled back that we weren’t hungry. He later brought some hot soup over but only Eveline partook of it.

I eventually moved out of the sardine pack and set up my sleeping bags near the opening of the tent, above the heads of everyone. While I felt less trapped up there, the ground was also much wetter since it had one less tarp on top of it.

One thing I learned about myself on this trip is that I cannot sleep without a pillow. I brought a thick blanket with me but had to use it as a pillow until I got too cold. When I finally wrapped it around my bare legs, I had to remove my fleece jacket and use that as a pillow. (I was wearing a sports bra, thermal underwear, a long-sleeved shirt, a cashmere sweater from Mongolia, and a fleece jacket, most of which remained dry until my main sleeping bag started to slip off the old sleeping bag and, because I hadn’t zipped myself in totally, I got wet where parts of me accidentally touched the ground.)

It was a good thing that the actual temperature outside was only 10 degrees. It just seemed much colder because of the wind and the rain. The wind in particular seemed to come out of nowhere and mounted assaults on our tent from every direction. If it had been any colder, I don’t know if we would have survived the night in all that damp.

At 3 AM, I could hear the camp stir ever so slightly before going back to sleep. I knew that there was no way anyone would attempt a climb to the summit in those conditions. I finally drifted off to sleep.

I woke up when I heard Rosan and and the others talking. We were relieved that we had survived the night without any incident and we all agreed that we should leave as soon as the porters got back. We laughed about our shared misery and shared our dry clothes, our extra plastic bags, and our trail mixes. As we were packing up, Jay delivered a nice, hot breakfast to our tent and I finally had something to eat.

As soon as we were told the porters had arrived, we deposited our bags with them and started our descent. The rain fell horizontally in the wind and I could feel my fingers turn white in the cold.

But, like magic, as soon as we got away from the open and exposed campsite, it was as if a screen had fallen between us and the elements. While we could still hear the wind and the rain rage around us, they only found us in a few places on the mountain and we only had to deal with a light drizzle most of the way.

Me, Rosan, Victor and Marge on the muddy trail back. Check out my walking stick from Sagada! (Photo c/o Eveline Fischer.)

The trail, however, was an even muddier mess this time around. But once we had made peace with it and accepted that there was no getting around the mud and just trudged through it, it became an easier descent.

By the time we reached the Ranger’s Station, we were in better spirits. We regrouped with the rest of Jay’s group and traded war stories. We gossiped about the other campers and their little dramas – the girl who spent the night in a tent with three guys; Eric, who should never be trusted; the girl who wanted to pee near our tent (I flashed my light on to let her know that we knew what she was up to); and, of course, Amor and the broccoli cook.

Regrouping at the Ranger’s Station. (L-R: Joshua, me, Eveline, Don, Gian, Arvin, Victor, Marge and Cocoy.)

We got to Baguio at 4:30 PM and the five of us caught the 5:40 PM bus to Manila (the others left at different times). While we had sworn off camping and the great outdoors the night before (“I’ll take the not-so-great indoors and controlled temperatures any day!”), we weren’t even back in Manila and we were already making plans to finish climbing Pulag and the other two summits in the Visayas and Mindanao. We figured that, save for an avalanche and an attack of killer cloud rats, we had gone through one of the worst nights Pulag had to offer, and survived it. Next time, we’d be better equipped. And we’d choose a better season to climb.

Some lessons I learned from this trip:

• It’s best to assume that all mountains have their own microclimates so always be prepared for rain, wind and cold no matter what the forecasts say.
• Always set up on higher ground. While we resented having to climb that long way up, it turned out to be for the best as the campsite below us ended up flooding due to water spilling down from where we were.
• If there are trees on a campsite, do not set up underneath it as, even if the rain does stop, the tree will continue to drip rain down onto your tent throughout the night.
• Bring a thick yoga mat or one of those inflatable rubber mats to serve as a cushion between your sleeping bag and the ground cover. At least those won’t absorb water and will keep your sleeping bag dry.
• Get a waterproof sleeping bag!!!
• Wear lightweight waterproof garments OVER EVERYTHING.
• Waterproof everything. Even if your bag has those rain covers, still keep everything inside plastic bags and make sure they are sealed well. That includes sleeping bags and towels. I was lucky that all my stuff remained dry during the climb. That is, until I brought everything out and wore all my clothes and got wet inside the tent.
• Bring extra plastic bags. And keep those dry inside another plastic bag too.
• Bring a malong. When you need to do your business outside, remove everything that could possibly get wet (trousers, socks, even underwear) and just cover yourself up with a malong. It might help to have some flip-flops or sandals that you can get in and out of easily too.
• If you are prone to panic attacks, bring the necessary medication that you need to help calm you down. I have a few “security blankets” that I need to have with me, like eye drops, for instance. I know that sounds strange but anxiety attacks aren’t really rational, are they? Anyway, knowing that I have whatever I need to make the object of my stress go away helps me calm down. Of course, a strong-assed sleeping pill should have done the trick. I didn’t have anything with me last weekend. Not even a Tylenol. That’s because my panic attacks are very rare. They’re so few and far between that I never expect them to occur. I now shudder to think what would have happened if I was alone in a tiny tent where I coudn’t even stand. GAAAAAH! I heard that another girl in our group “had trouble breathing” that night too. I’m pretty sure it was a panic attack.
• Bring a walking stick! This is the best advice I got before climbing Mount Pulag. It made the climb so much easier.