Mt. Pinatubo Trekking Adventure - Day Tour ~ Pinoy Biyahero

My first major Trekking Adventure and a tour in Mt. Pinatubo. This was last January 24, 2011. I was with Paul Durano, a well-known professional photographer. This travel was an all-expense paid. Thank you! :)

Waking up early @ around 3:00am of January 24, 2011. Getting ready for the trip and packed up things to bring. We brought 3 bottles of 1L Mineral water and some cookies. I grabbed a windbreaker jacket, just to prepare for a possible rain and zip lock for our gadgets. I forgot to bring shoes for the trek so I decided to just wear slippers. We were staying at FilInvest Marcos Hi-Way, Marikina City so we need to live by 4:00am. We had a short stop somewhere in NLEX (I cannot give you the exact location since I am not familiar with the place, my apology). We ate breakfast at a fast food chain and bought something for our lunch, something that could be eaten while riding a jeep or while walking so I bought myself a Burger.

At around 6:00am, we arrived in Capas Tarlac and another minutes going to Brgy. Sta. Juliana where Registration Center is located and from there we left @around 7:00am to start the adventure by riding a 4x4 SUV.

We crossed rivers, plains and passed thru this what they called Skyway. It was kinda funny! Wanna know why? There was a misconception on my part regarding this thingy. I was thinking it was a concrete road project built on a hill side just like transcentral hi-way in Cebu. But, I was completely wrong. Skyway is a extremely rough road starting from a cliff, to a creek and on top of the mountain. Yes dude, it is really on top!You can even have an overlooking view of Zambales. You could feel the thrill riding the 4x4 SUV as it travels along the mountain. That bumpy ride lasted for 1.5hrs until we reached the drop-off point. We started walking over huge rocks, muds, and water streams. At first it was sunny but as we go on with the trek it rained, good thing I was prepared enough for it (boyscout!?haha). We've reached a shades and there we rest to re-energize. There was a signage on the area that would surely captures the attention of everyone who visits Mt. Pinatubo, maybe it was a sort of a challenge for the trekkers on how fast they could get in the Mt. Pinatubo Crater Lake. It says:

I was able to reached the Mt. Pinatubo Crater Lake after 17 mins. Congrats to me!\m/ The trip was truly exhilarating! The total walking time was about an hour adding 2hrs travel time from Manila - Brgy. Sta. Juliana, Capas Tarlac, 1hr 4x4 SUV ride, the total travel time was 4hrs. After a long travel --- enormous, magnificent, amazing and whatever words appropriate to describe the Mt. Pinatubo Crater Lake that came across our way (\m/). This is the resulting lake after the Century's Largest Volcanic Eruption in 1991, "the Mt. Pinatubo Volcanic Eruption".

Magnificent, as it is!A relaxing ambiance --- listening to the birds singing, enjoying the magnificent view, and savoring the fresh air and cold weather. What a wonderful escape from the city life! Unlike before, Mt. Pinatubo has already been developed. They created a park with a viewing stage, photo area, enough shades and concrete stairs for a less hassle in going down the lake. Though swimming is prohibited, but we just can't say no to the tempting blue lake water. We went down to go swimming. And, because of curiosity we rented a boat to see and go swimming at the Hot Spring. Hot Spring, as they say, but we saw no spring. All we've seen was only a smoking shoreline, hot indeed!lol. So, how could we possibly swim on it?:)) Anyway, we still enjoyed taking pictures and soaking our feet in their Hot Spring! We ate our lunch and then later went back to the camp area and just continue taking pictures. We left Mt. Pinatubo @around 2:00pm. We arrived Manila around 6:00pm. A day that was!

FYI:

Mount Pinatubo is an active stratovolcano located on the island of Luzon, at the intersection of the borders of the Philippine provinces of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga. It is located in the Tri-Cabusilan Mountain range separating the west coast of Luzon from the central palins, and is 42 km (26 mi) west of the dormant and more prominent Mt. Arayat, occasionally mistaken for Pinatubo. Before 1991, it was covered in dense forest which supported a population of several thousand indigenous people, the Aeta, who had fled to the mountains from the lowlands during the protracted Spanish conquest of the Philippines which began 1565.

The volcano's eruption in June 1991 produced the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century and the largest eruption in living memory. Successful predictions of the onset of the climactic eruption led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from surrounding areas, saving many lives, but surrounding areas were severely damaged by pyroclastic flows, ash deposits, and later by lahars caused by rainwater remobilizing earlier volcanic deposits: thousands of houses and other buildings were destroyed.