Hiking Diary: Mountain No. 3 is Batulove, Mount Batulao

Disclaimer: This has been posted on my personal blog barely three years ago but in this post, I did some revisions. Happy reading, steemians!

Batulao, Nasugbu, Batangas
Mount Batulao, 811 MASL
Aug.30 - 31, 2015

Reaching the foot of Mount Batulao…

It was a happy road trip going to Mount Batulao. We have gone to a longer route which was via Ternate, Cavite. So I strongly advice that if you have your own vehicle, better to pass through Tagaytay because from there, Mt. Batulao is just 20 minutes away.

We reached Mount Batulao via a friend's car and by asking people whom we passed through. We didn't trust google map so it took us longer time. Haha. Well anyway, lesson learned.
Since we brought a car, there's a parking fee that costs Php.150.00 for an overnight park.
From the parking area, we have to ride a tricycle down to the tourism office.
This is also the starting point of the climb. Tricycle ride costs 100 that is good for 4 people's sharing. We were five in the group and we got two trikes because of our bulky belongings.

There is no entrance fee at Mount Batulao. We just have to drop by at the said office to register.
It was past 6 p.m. already when we started the climbing to the camp site at Peak 7.
We planned to have an overnight trip at Mount Batulao so we brought tents and lots of food and water.

Since it was dark already, we were advised to hire a guide. His name is Jonnel and he's the one who also brought our gallons of water and three tents. His fee was 400 pesos for a one-way guide.

Flashlights on and we're ready.

There are two trails going to the highest peak of Mount Batulao. The old and new trail.

By the way, Mt.Batulao has 12 peaks. Jonnel guided us to the new and according to him, the way there is much easier than the old trail.

It was dark so we had to be very extra careful in passing the trails especially the narrow ones. There's a lot of stopovers so we finished the hike to Peak 7 for two hours.

We then set up our tent and ate our dinner at one of the peaks of Mount Batulao.

Dinner held inside the girls' tent.
It had been a great and unforgettable night. You ask me why.
(Why?)

Right after our dinner and planning to go to bed early, a strong rain came and our tent (girl's tent) had a watery experience. The boys got wet because of trying to fix our tent's roof. But it was no use, we still got wet inside.
And it was freaking cold!

In the end, our things were transferred to Rye's tent.

When the rain stopped, the girls decided to just sleep at Rye's tent. It was quiet amazing that four people (3 ladies and 1 gent) fitted in on a two-person tent plus the fact that our stuffs were in there also. Please imagine a four fetus inserted on a sardines' can.

We slept at 1:30 am and woke-up at 5 am to witness the sunrise at a mountain's peak.

A more than three-hour sleep was worth the sacrifice because the view was just so amazing. It was beyond words to describe its natural beauty. A great experience indeed!

One of us brought a cooking set so we were able to cook something for breakfast and have coffees also.
When the sun was totally above us, we packed our stuffs and tents. There's a house cum retail store and stopover where we could keep safe our things while we were reaching the 12th peek. It was five peaks more from our campsite or Peak 7.
From Peak 7, we reached the highest summit after more than an hour including three rests/stopover and photo op mode.

Mountain ranges were just so breathtaking and eyes amazement.

All the struggles, tiredness and haggardness were worth it when we reached the top. This was indeed a must life experience.

Thank you for this chance! I’ve got to be closer with my new found friends and my love for nature and mountaineering boosted up.
This was the start of my more hiking activities.

So there!
Thank you for reading my hiking diary and more to follow.

Keep on steeming!