Hiking Mt. Daraitan

Once in awhile, we are lost in our thoughts and can't just simply focus unto something. We sometimes need to get out even just for a day to clean our thoughts and have an inner peace. Hiking is one of the best ways to refresh our minds and get the sense of peace. On one lazy afternoon, random thoughts lead my cousin to decide to hike a mountain. Hiking a mountain was always my cousin’s favorite thing to do. In fact, she climbs regularly and do it on a monthly basis. Since I was at their home, she asked me if I could join her and her sister to hike the Mount Daraitan in the Philippines. At first, I was hesitant because climbing is really a physically demanding activity and it is not really my type of activity but later on didn't have a choice but to agree.

We packed up and drove on early Sunday morning together with my cousin and some of their friends. It’s always good to schedule your hike during weekdays because, during weekends, long lines from a group of people snacking up trying to get that photo will annoy you. Considering the effort of climbing a very tall mountain and can't even have a decent picture is a bum. Surprisingly, only a few people showed up that early morning and thus making the climbing experience more authentic.

It took us about 2 hours to travel to the base of the mountain where there are few stores are already opened when we arrived. We packed our bags in the car and went for a mini breakfast to give us strength during the climb since there were a lot of stores in the area and none in the top. The start of the trail was a mild steep slope making it harder to climb every step. We walked through a dense forest with a rocky trail until we arrived at the first station of the mountain where we relax for a bit after a long hike.

After 4 hours of climbing, we arrived at the grassy summit of the mountain.

The summit was covered with intense mountain limestone rock formation giving us a very good view from the top of the mountain. The view was out of this world experience. I haven’t seen a beautiful view than this in my entire life. It made me grasp the idea that everything in this world is worth it if only we time to look for it. Of course, climbing it wasn’t easy but the reward from the view you see is worth every pain in you felt during hiking the mountain.

A view like this makes you want to stay here for the rest of your life but I had to moved on. We started to descend in the other side of the mountain to go to Tinapak River. Tinapak River was a marvel to see. The formations of rock along the river banks are breath taking. Aside from the river, there is also a cave which has a chilling cold pool inside.

Mt. Daraitan is located in the border of Tanay, Rizal, and General Nakar. Its major jump-off point and is just a few hours away from the metro Manila.

In this short life, I've come to realize that life is too short to say no. We might die tomorrow and will never be able to see this beauty at all. So we better do everything that we haven’t tried. Life is a game in which we should gamble to get the best result for everything. Good or bad experience, still it is important for us to grow and become a better person in the future. So when we grow old, we can say that we lived the life we wanted.

Thanks for reading my short trip to this amazing mountain.

Reference:

This is actually a repost but more improve blog of my previous one.
Here is the link: https://steemit.com/travel/@jonelq/travel-with-me-02-climbing-one-of-the-highest-mountain-in-the-philippines