Mount Daraitan

Hiking a mountain is one of my cousin’s favorite things 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 not really my type of activity but later on I agreed.

Days before the climb, I’ve scan the internet on what could be the possible obstacles we might face along the trail when climbing the mountain. The results from various people’s experience said that this will not be an easy climb. Steep slope, rugged terrain and thick forest will welcome you when climbing the mountain. This is a minor climb which has a 4/9 difficulty level which is good for the beginner like me.

We drove there on early Sunday morning together with my cousins and some of their friends. It’s always good to schedule your hike during weekdays because during weekends, long lines from group of people snacking up trying to get that photo will might annoy you. Surprisingly, only few people showed up that early morning and thus making the climbing experience more authentic.

By private vehicle, it took us about 2 hours to get there from my cousin’s house. We arrived at the foot of the mountain around 5am in the morning. We packed our bags and went for a mini breakfast since there were a lot of stores in the area then stared our ascent. The start of the trail was a mild steep slope making it harder to climb every step. We walked through a dense forest and 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 rock formation giving us very good view from the top to the bottom 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, Ive come to realize that life is too short to say no. So we better do everything that we haven’t tried. Life is a game in which we should gamble to get the best result of everything. 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.

My official entry to @surpassinggoogle's #untalented contest