Amazing Mt. Maculot 20150829

After three times of postponing our climb due to bad weather, FINALLY!

I do not know what to expect from this climb, all I care about is that we have a fine weather during our stay up in the summit.

We ancipated already that since it's a long weekend, more group would be coming. Hence, we left Manila by 3am with our own vehicle, had an hour breakfast at SLEX and finally arrived at Mountaineer's Stopover & Store - our jump off point - 6:30a30m. Before reaching the said store, there's a makeshift "kubo" with table outside where you will have to register your group, pay the registration and secure guide. Registration is 20/head and you will have to leave one ID per group. Overnight rate for guide is 800/group for 1-5 person - additional 100/person in excess of that. There are 7 persons in our group, hence, we had to pay 1000php. You don't have to pay the guide fee right away, payment should be made after the climb and shall be given directly to your guide. 

Our guide, Anthony (part-time college student), brought us to Mountaineer's Stopover & Store where we parked our vehicle. Since we already bought everything we need from previous night, we just had a 30-minute rest and proceeded to start the trek.

The first few minutes were spent walking on a paved road - gradual assault - quite easy. However, as we progressed the trail becomes harder as it is really steep and rocky. I was told, beforehand, that there are several makeshift stores which serves as pitstop but I never expected them to be that many. Though, I appreciated their presence, because you will really need to rest. 

By 9:15am, we were already there at the campsite and was able to find a good spot to pitch our tent. By 10am, other groups started to arrive but most of them were day hikers. We figured, by 12nn, as also advised by our guide that it would be a waste of time to do the rockies in the afternoon as we will have to wait for our turn to get a good shot of the rockies. We decided to do it in the morning.

There's a store at the campsite and as expected its quite expensive. Cooked pancit chilimansi is being sold at 45php, mountain dew is at 40php, etc.

By 7am the following morning, after having our coffee and biscuits, we continued our trek to the rockies. It was ALL WORTH IT!

Overnight IT Actual (with own vehicle):
DAY 1
3:00AM - Assembly at Pureza, Sta. Mesa
4:00AM - Breakfast at Shell SLEX
6:30AM - Arrival at Jump off point; registration
*30-minute rest, parking of the vehicle
7:00AM - Start of trek
9:15AM - Arrival at the campsite
*rest, pitch tent
11:00AM - Lunch (packed food)
*rest of the afternoon/evening = socials

DAY 2
6:00AM - Breakfast
7:00AM - Start of trek to Rockies
7:45 - Arrival at Rockies
*30-minute pictorial (there are 2 group ahead of us so we did not have to wait that long for our turn)
8:15AM - Start trek back to campsite
9:00AM - Break camp
9:45AM - Start descent
11:50 - Arrival at Jump off