Remember that you’re human, so it’s okay to admit that you have your limits. Don’t be scared if people are passing you by or whatnot when your body desires for a break–because sweetie, it’s not a race. You’re going to reach the top sooner or later; it doesn’t matter, so do take your time. (But don’t abuse it okay? Taking more than 6 hours is overkill. I think we only took around 4 hours of hiking up to our camping spot.)Â
And oh, just another reminder: whenever you pass someone by, especially a local from the tribes, say hello/hi/good morning/good afternoon as a sign of respect. 🙂
So yeah, do take the liberty of enjoying the view, enjoying your drink, enjoying your snack… and yes of course, harass your camera. Click away like maaaaad! There are a lot of good views, sceneries, and flora that are worth taking pictures at! 🙂 But don’t take too much and take all of your camera’s capacity away–the view up the summit of Mt. Pulag is going to be way better!
Okay this might not be technically a tip, but I just want to give you guys a heads up.
This is part of a true hiking experience, ladies and gentlemen.
Again, no need to bring tents because Biyaheng Victory gives ’em to you. (High five!)
But the important things you should bring though are: a sleeping bag and a mat. The sleeping bag will really help you in the cold and the mat will help protect your body as a whole from the very very hard ground. We had the error of not bringing mats and boy, did our bodies ache the morning after!
*We reached our camping spot by around 5PM, right on time to see the sunset! Took pictures, socialized, and ate! 🙂
Just… don’t.
This was another error on our part: we were thinking that since it was summer anyways and the heck, we’re in the Philippines–then well, it wouldn’t get too cold, would it? Right??? A jacket and some pants would do it, right???
WRONG. Come night and early AM we were shivering like little puppies in the cold. It was crazy! We layered up for sure, but it was still damn cold! We didn’t bring gloves or scarves either so thank goodness we packed a lot of socks. We doubled it up on our feet and even wore it like gloves for added heat!
> Some people just ended up not sleeping at all as well because of the cold. Yep… It was that serious.
Take note of this: we went up to Pulag in the heat of the summer but it was still darn cold in the evenings (actually even during the day) so how much more if you were hiking up here during the rainy season, right? …Oh boy, we could have never imagined that it would be that cold in here. I mean it makes sense because it’s not like we’re all accustomed to such temperatures, but still, I think we reached 2 degrees that night. Not so sure, but if you ask me, it felt colder than that.
The moment we reached the camping spot and had dinner, we immediately went to sleep because of exhaustion. Which was okay, because come the next day, at 3AM, we were to take a hike to the summit in order to witness the sunrise!
It will be relatively pitch black so you should arm yourself with a good flashlight. Better if it’s a headlamp so you don’t need to carry it around. This is pretty important because the trails up the mountain is steep and narrow. One misstep and yeah… down you go baby.Â
As you can see from the photo above, the small white specks at the bottom are the flashlights of the hikers below us who were also making their way up to the summit.
