Mt. Maculot says – Don’t you dare underestimate me!

I have climbed Mt. Maculot in the past thrice- Mt. Maculot is a 900+ MASL above sea level and located in Cuenca Batangas. Its proximity in Manila and its antonishing view of Taal Lake and Volcano, makes it a favourite for those seasoned and newbie in mountain climbing. Mt. Maculot has three main destinations, Rockies (760+) MASL, Summit (900+MASL) and Grotto (500+ MASL). The views of Taal Lake are perfect in the rockies that is why 90% of climbers prefer to climbed on this part of the mountain. For the past 3x that I was in Mt. Maculot, we are already contented in staying at the Rockies.

My numerous visits to Mt. Maculot has lead me to a conclusion that is Mt. Maculot is very simple mountain, no preparations needed etc, behaviour that is really wrong for a Climber enthusiast like me.

 I have read in a blog, that you can never count Mt. Maculot as a mountain that you have climbed if you never experience its summit. As if I was ignited by this statement, conquering the summit has become my obsessions for days. And indeed last July 27-28, we had an opportunity climbed it and aim for a Summit Traverse from Rockies to Grotto.

Our group is composed of 8 persons, 4 of which is first timer. I am the group leader and act as the guide since I know the trail from the jump-off to the Rockies. Although there are apprehensions from my first timer members, I just encourage them since I am being complacent, thinking that if we can go to the rockies there are no way we can never reached the summit and do the traverse.

After the overnight at the Rockies, at 8 am we decided to proceed with the summit. The trail from the rockies to summit is becoming moderate to difficult, which is typical of mountains so to speak. And we manage it well.

After the quick photo ops from the summit, and a little rest, we decided to take on the trail to grotto going down. And there our dilemma started to arise!

We did not expect it nor prepared for it. The trail going down is almost 90 degrees. Its almost rocky to whole trail with very limited steps to help the climbers. There are ropes segments, that makes you feel you are doing a major rapelling with huge rocks that need to be conquered going down. The plan of going down by just 2 hours has become doubled. Every members of our group is scared to do the rapelling with our heavy backpacks and tents. I personally afraid of heights, but since I am the team leader, I am required to start.  Likewise the trails is filled with thorny leaves and trees.

It was a scary moments for me. I am afraid more on my team member’s safety rather than myself. We are nearly running out of water and we did not know if we are getting near our exit points.

As we progress little by little in our request to going down, a realization has stuck me along the way. I have become complacent. I have underestimated Mt. Maculot.

Maybe we are just lucky and God Bless our group so much! We have successfully and safely reached the Grotto.  When we are waiting for the bus going back to Manila. I say to myself – I WILL NEVER UNDERESTIMATE ANY MOUNTAINS AGAIN!

*Note: I did not own the pictures used in this blog. Since our own traverse is quite scary for us, we were not able to photographed ourselves in the duration of the trek. I just used the results of my random browsing in the internet.