Monday, April 20, 2009

Mount Pinatubo 01: Responding to UPM’s Challenge

Quick Facts:

Type: Stratovolcano (active)
Elevation: 960+ MASL (meters above sea level)
Location: borders of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga (Luzon Island, Philippines)
Meaning:Pinatubo” in Tagalog and Sambal means “to grow” wherein indigenous people claim as a fertile place where crops can grow and be productive.
Prominence: It erupted in July 16 with a magnitude of 7.7 the largest earthquake recorded in 1990. Less than two decades later, it is now one of the country’s most beautiful travel destinations.


A month ago, Laine sent me an invite for the Talikasan 2009: Mount Pinatubo organized by the University of the Philippines Mountaineers (UPM), wherein she is a member. Right away, I got excited. I have read the accounts of Allan (Lantaw) and Dom (Escapo) on their great trek to the majestic crater lake of Mount Pinatubo and promised myself that given the opportunity, I would join this action-packed expedition to the world-famous volcano.

Thus, after the invite was sent, I immediately signed up. I also encouraged friends from the office to join the trek.

No, we didn’t take the “skyway”…we climb the old way taking us five hours from the jump off point to the crater lake via the canyons carved by lahar flows.

meeting place in Capas

Mountaineers gear up and getting ready for the trek


our bus

Our bus that took us from Quezon City to Capas, Tarlac

4x4 ride

The 4 x 4 truck


with don, pat, xmas and liz

My officemates!

boats

Start of the 4 x 4 ride going to the jump off point

beautiful riders: kat, lei, and chelo

Beautiful riders

the barren land

My first glimpse at the barren land

meeting the locals1

Meeting the locals

local2

We passed by "manong" getting some supply for his house

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[postscript]

...and why is it that every time I see you (or you see me), I am often in a comical situation. blrrr!



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i get this strange pang of "wanting to go back" everytime i see our Pinatubo photos.



Crim

my gulch said...

@crim:
alone? i think it's the people you are with that made that trip "really" special. andun ako eh! wehehe!

Anonymous said...

people i was with? can't think of anyone eh..oh, there's one - but i forgot the name.

yeah. alone. u can come too. ;P hehe.

Crim

escape said...

wow! great photos rayts. na quote pa tuloy kami ni allan.

the last photo reminded as of our joke that it's called LAHARley Davidson motor.

pieterbie said...

Sounds like a terric trip!
Cannot wait for the follow up.
I don't need to wait :-)
I have some backlog.

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