NAPO TO BABAG TALES XXX: Manwel's Graduation Day

I GAVE A PROMISE to Manwel Roble, my young friend and future trail guide, that I would visit him on the occasion of his graduation from elementary where he invited me earlier to celebrate with his family. It had been a long time since I have last seen Manwel and his siblings Jucel and Juliet and it was on December 27, 2009.

We have been obsessed since January of a discovery of a new route from Guadalupe to Napo wherein we were afforded of a good trail that will not trudge on a hard surface of the concrete road to Napo. Given that, we tried to link this route to that of the trail passing by the Roble homestead going to Mount Babag. It wasn't easy. By the time we reached Napo we were already spent.

We tried hastening our pace one time but we turned back and spent a very late lunch in Sapangdaku River instead where there is a natural spring. At another time, in my solo sortie on February 28, 2010, I was able to reach the Roble homestead and delivered mangosteen and lanzones fruits but the children weren't there and I backtracked, too tired to go on to Mt. Babag.

So on this special moment – today, March 31, 2010 – I took a half-day from work since it was a weekday and go out to the hills again. I will have a perfect company in the person of old buddy, Ernie Salomon, and we met at the back of Our Lady of Guadalupe de Cebu Parish at 1:00 PM.

I bought two kilos of well-milled corn and 50-peso worth of bread for Manwel, Juliet and Jucel. It should be hot at this hour just after lunch and I feel the heat bouncing off the asphalt pavement. We decided instead to ride motorcycles-for-hire for Napo to save our shoes and our feet from walking on a hot surface.

Reaching Napo, we immediately set out to crossing the now-dry Sapangdaku River and into the Napo Main Trail going into the second river crossing. We reached it in 27 minutes, the fastest time we have done so far. As we took rest, I refilled my drinking bottle with the natural spring that still gush water even when this has been one of the hottest summer.

After this, we set to climbing the ascending route towards the house of the Robles with its mango-tree lined trail giving us shade from the glare of the high afternoon sun. We reached the Roble homestead after a little more than thirty minutes of climbing and it is 3:00 PM. This will still be our playground even when we have added a new interest in bushcraft and survival.

Both me and Ernie enjoyed our well-deserved rest on the bamboo benches and I happily parted away the milled corn to Manwel's mother who immediately arranged the firewood in her wok. Jucel claimed his deserved place with us and began to badger me with several probing questions until I could not handle it anymore and surrendered away the bread to him.

Fele, their father, slew a rooster for the occasion while me and Ernie decided to boil water for coffee. A hot coffee always give you that added pep to keep you awake and enjoy this moment with joyous vivacity. Manwel, meanwhile, is all smiles as he hurdled the last of the barriers in his elementary studies with his graduation. He is floating like he is in heaven right now.

From my backpack, I produced a long bottle of local brandy and two bottles of a popular soda energy drink and mixed these in a pitcher. It is a perfect match, smooth and non-volatile even without ice and magnify conversations into a lively and animated affair. I love this drink and the brandy glass moved like a tennis ball bouncing back and forth between me and Ernie.

An hour later, the meal is served. Free-rein rooster is best cooked in soup with horse radish and green papaya and it is steaming as it is laid down in a small table. There is also the chicken adobo to contend with plus the steamed well-milled corn. There was silence as everyone helped to himself until we stuff ourselves full.

Afterward, we resumed and finished the brandy to help digest the food we ate. It is already late afternoon and the sun made long shadows among the hills and valleys. Before we left, I parted away a cash gift for Manwel courtesy of Camp Red and we made this day memorable for him.

We left at six in the evening towards the lower valley and we didn't use flashlights. Even when there is no moon rising, the trail we followed are very clear in the dark. We didn't hurry but we walked cautiously and raised our feet higher so we would not trip onto something. Just the same, we reach Napo an hour later.

From Napo, we walked down into Guadalupe on the concrete road until we reached the back of the church at 15 past seven and, from the church, we went straight into our favorite watering hole where we were joined by Boy Toledo. After finishing four 1-liter bottles of Red Horse Extra-Strong Beer we decided to call it a day.

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NAPO TO BABAG TALES XVIII: Night Navigation

INSPIRED BY MY SOLO trek in the dark on April 4, 2009, Boy Toledo and Ernie Salomon decided to try night-trekking along the trails between Napo and the Babag Mountain Range. They are, to me, the finest specimens of our kind who walked with me and I know the level of their physical conditioning and I have confidence that both can tackle navigation in the night with such ease. I opted to use this activity as an experiment in how to optimize the use of a single light to accommodate three or more hikers and to make life difficult for Boy T and Ernie.

I understand that a night hike in the woods is totally discouraged by the Leave No Trace movement, with which principles is strongly espoused by the Cebu Mountaineering Society and other outdoor clubs through all their seminars and outdoor activities, but it cannot be discounted by the fact that each individual will encounter such conditions some day in the future. I am one of those that will not swallow entirely this LNT for a reason; by a set of values entirely of my own; and a confidence borne of a wide experience in the outdoors.

However, there are other groups that do night-trekking because it is part of their tradition and of others still because it is more thrilling and challenging. These people, obviously, have not gone back to the trails where they have passed last night and see for themselves the great distortion on the vegetations caused by the limited vision offered by their hiking in the night. A little responsibility and a little training would do the trick to leave a little trace of their passing.

For this activity I will test-drive a Habagat Viajedor and stuffed inside it were my heavy old-school sleeping bag, clothes, a liter of water, a flat bottle of rum and other outdoor items. I also brought with me an Apexus tent which was given to me by Dennis Legaspi during the recent Sinulog Mardi Gras. I will be using it for the first time and, like the Viajedor, it will also be tested. I carried a much heavy load this time than our usual trip here as we will be spending a night at Manwel's Peak and there will be some cooking.

Boy T will carry and test his new Bulin camping stove, his cook set and half-cooked ham. I carried two kilos of rice while Ernie will do the honors of cooking the ham on his alcohol-fed stove and the rice on Boy T's stove. Meanwhile, I will just watch and start a little bonfire in my mind. That is the plan, I think.

On the night of April 25, 2009, we met at the parish ground of the Our Lady of Guadalupe de Cebu at six and we took dinner at nearby eateries before taking our traditional warm-up walk to Napo at 7:30 PM. We arrived there at 8:07 PM and we checked our equipment before proceeding to cross the first river crossing.

For my own good reason, I left my heavy Maglite 15-inch flashlight at home intending to train my eyes with starlight and to deny myself of the privilege of adequate illumination. Sounds extreme? Hard core? No and no! I am just a guinea pig this time. A crash test dummy manipulated by my own desire to achieve more night-trail experience and knowledge before imparting these to my fellow outdoors kind.

By the time we crossed the river, I led the pack with Boy T in the middle with his headlight on. Ernie donned his headlight but it is switched off and act as a back-up in case Boy T's light malfunctioned. There is no moon on the horizon unlike in my previous trip where there was a waning half moon. Despite a handicap of an almost absent lighting, I put forth a torrid pace and the two behind me sweated hard despite the cooling effect of an upland atmosphere. We arrived at the second-river crossing in almost daylight speed.

I drank from a spring nearby and we rested just a few minutes before we started on again taking another route that would by-pass the community at Sitio Busan. This trail is intended for use by us only on special occasions and in emergencies and just the three of us knew of this trail aside from the locals. We huffed and puffed as we climbed up and we wonder to each other why we got ourselves so tired this early. We proceeded steadily and took a quick rest and proceed again then a quick rest and so on and so forth...

At exactly ten we arrived at the house of Manwel Roble, our young friend and guide. He was already waiting for us and have been preparing his gears for this occasion. I was so thirsty and so were Boy T and Ernie. I drank from my Nalgene bottle and left less of a half liter of water for the last ascent to Mount Babag. Manwel's father went with us to lead us to a new trail. We followed a ridge and it went on higher and higher of a difficulty a degree or two lesser than that of Ernie's Trail.

This trail is a desolate trail and here and there were newly-cut branches and trunks of young trees and bushes and tossed about were frayed out leaves and twigs that were left to dry and rot on the hillsides. We smelled wood smoke and up ahead we heard a vociferous beat of a battery-powered stereo. Smoke blended with the fog and there was haze hanging around the surroundings and as we neared the object of the sound we saw one guy in a makeshift camp cooking rice over an oversized charcoal glowing red and hot while the other tending a charcoal-making hole. So, they do that at night now.

I call this trail the Babag East Ridge Pass and I will follow that trail again soon in daylight condition to investigate more of the environment that these mindless cockroaches are slowly eroding. This is our mountain too. We have as much right as they have on the land which they took for granted making easy money cutting trees for firewood and charcoal which they sell to greedy traders. A deed that does not help any of their children and their children's children. A deed that we hope to break someday.

At the final stretch of the trail, I let Ernie and Boy T, with their headlights on, overtake me and I tackled the dim trail with just the aid of starlight. It was barely discernible but I followed the trail marked by a parted hard ground in between plant growths and low vegetations. It was a slow pace I made for beneath what my eyes can't see are surfaces that were uneven and blocked with half-buried rocks and wood and protruding roots. And it was steep!

I arrived last at Babag Ridge at eleven-thirty and they were waiting for me on two parallel bamboo benches! The idea of walking on an almost even flat surface at the Babag Ridge Road is already rest for me so I forego with the temptation of sitting on the bamboo benches. The rest followed after me their lights bobbing in the dark. At almost twelve midnight we claimed our campsite at Manwel's Peak, three hundred meters far from the tower-ringed peak of Mt. Babag.

I pitched my Apexus tent and it was very easy to erect by my own self, much more so with a helping hand. Boy T tried pitching his tent but one front arch pole broke in two pieces leaving Boy T's tent looking like a strange UFO with two protruding antennas. Hehehe! I switched my sweat-soaked clothes with dry ones and I felt good but not my tummy! Boy T and Ernie were also very hungry resulting from the exertion so we decided to cook the rice and the ham and accommodate for ourselves a late late second dinner. We were so tired and we decided to forget the rum that I carried up here. Ernie later slept with Boy T while I shared sleeping space with Manwel.

We woke up at seven in the morning the following day, April 26. We reheated the ham and cooked another round of rice and ate breakfast before we decided to break camp and went downhill to our favorite store overlooking Metro Cebu. So early in the morning we consumed already four 1-liter bottles of San Miguel Beer Grande and we were greeted with a song from Tony Orlando's “Beautiful Sunday” on an FM station. After we have had enough of our drinking we backtracked to where we went at 10:00 AM and went down via Kahugan Trail. It started to rain. Hard!

We were so delighted by the pouring rain that we let ourselves soaked to the soles. FYI, raincoats are not part of our gears during our training. We need to increase our endurance to the cold. The rains packed hard the loose topsoil in going down to Kahugan and there were no slippery moments as we went down and down in such a fast pace. We made it in lesser time reaching the San Roque Chapel than the last time we visited here.

From the chapel, Boy T and me ran the excellent trail in under seven minutes time to the river crossing; jumping over obstacles and evading curves and turns with practiced food placements on a trail that were already so familiar with us. Our sweat mixed with the rainwater in our shirts by the time we reached the river bank and waited for Ernie with his cane to arrive. He did arrive three minutes later but it still was a good pace.

We walked the rest of the trail to Napo and arrived there at ten-forty. The skies were still cloudy and we decided to walk the asphalt and concrete road down to Guadalupe church and made it at 11:15 AM. From there, Ernie and me hopped inside Boy T's KIA Pride and drank empty the three bottles of San Miguel Beer Grande near the Guadalupe police station before resuming to attend the CeMS monthly meeting and consumed another two bottles. After that there was mayhem...

SELF-ASSESMENT

NIGHT-HIKING, NIGHT-trekking or night-walking is not advisable for anyone. Not even to those who have enough experience of the outdoors. Remember, the conditions encountered during daytime is different during nighttime. We all know these and we don't have to stretch our imagination further why is it so.

But there are three exceptions: (1) When you are caught up with dusk as you tried to make it to the campsite or to a pre-defined destination, (2) you rouse early from sleep and start at early dawn, and (3) you are training in a controlled environment.

The recent activity undertaken by us only illustrates the limitations by which a group of travelers in a very dim trail will encounter. It is already a given, that everyone is equipped with a flashlight or a headlight considering that this is one of the items that is given a high priority. As dusk approaches everyone will settle down and retrieve their own lighting device from their packs. And at a convenient hour everyone switches on their lights.

The night navigation training however dissolves the common notion that everyone should do as they please with their lights. That would be a comfortable thing to do walking in a well-illuminated trail without thinking of the consequences if all the lights fail at the same time. That is impossible, yes, but there is always Murphy's Law to contend with and that natural law will never go wrong. Then there's the matter with security if you give off a bright luminescence from a distance.

With the training, the participants were instructed to maintain a walking formation whereby a single light would be adequate and to make available other lights on stand by mode. The other purpose of this training is to develop and make use of the participants' natural night vision and how to sustain this plus how to identify certain constellations that will keep you oriented.

One light is sufficient for three people, two lights for five to six and the lightbearer should be strategically placed in between and the fewer lights used the lesser visibility from a distant observer. This is not an easy thing to do but, through practice, it will be second nature. Ernie and Boy T have gained with this experience and they have learned fast unheard of for old men.

Night Navigation Training is one activity that does not come often. The trails in Napo to Mt. Babag would present that opportunity perfectly to anyone who may avail of this. Just give me a nudge and I will oblige your request.

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NAPO TO BABAG TALES XVII: The Soloist

I DRANK MY LAST BOTTLE OF beer and I went home at thirty-five past eight in the evening. Our office just concluded a Thanksgiving Mass and there was a buffet dinner and then drinks were served. It is Saturday, April 4, 2009 and, earlier, two members of the Cebu Mountaineering Society led a mixed group of eighteen member-applicants and guests from bisdakcentral.com and from NCR to a trek from Guadalupe to Mount Babag at 10:00 AM.

I am supposed to be on that morning trip but I begged off from joining the activity but I promised them that I would be there at eleven in the evening. The drinking session in our office was an unforeseen event and I was forced to tarry long, but, nevertheless, I did make true my oath that I WILL BE THERE and so I quickly gulped all the frothy liquid served to me.

After a quick shower I packed my things inside my Habagat Venado II and bade goodbye to my wife and the kids. I carried along my heavy Maglite - powered by four size-D batteries, my rainbow-colored Mantrack jungle knife and my new Böker folder for my protection on my solo travel in the dark. I also brought my throwing axe and secured this outside my backpack while I held the flashlight with either hand. A good knife is a good companion on the trail.

At 9:47 PM I arrived at the back of the Guadalupe church and I rode a motorcycle-for-hire for Napo and started my lonely trek 15 minutes later. It was very dark on the trail but there were wisps of moonlight that penetrated through the foliage and I used this scant light to navigate myself in the dark. A waning half-moon was still hanging in the western sky and in two hours it would be hidden behind the Babag Range. It was not easy doing travel without a focused light in front of you but I managed myself quite well.

I reached the second river crossing at 11:02 PM. I admit I mimicked the pace of a turtle. My personal safety is always on my mind and I used my flashlight only when crossing a river or a gully. It is best to limit your visibility at night. I bypassed upland communities knowing that a stranger's scent and sound could be easily picked up at night by a watchful dog so I improvised and followed trails where I have not passed before and calculated the routes to connect it to the main trail. These could not be easily done during daytime much more so during night without using a flashlight.

Finally, I reached Manwel Roble's place at fifteen past twelve midnight and I was soaking wet with perspiration even when the night was quite cool. I could hear voices from within the house and they have not noticed my coming so I took camera shots of myself sitting on the bamboo benches before I decided to make known my presence. I gave away my two kilos of rice to them so I could make use of less weight tackling the difficult Ernie's Trail.

Manwel's father accompanied me and I decided to use the flashlight to light our way. The moon had already descended beyond the Babag skyline and there are no more faint moonlight to aid in my navigation. The use of the flashlight at this phase of the trail is most needed and I would have to forego the element of invisibility. Along the route I could clearly see the lines and ridges left by many hiking shoes seen at a different angle of light. They left a lot of shoe prints to follow!

I arrived at the established campsite at Manwel's Peak at about 1:30 dawn of April 5. Ernie Salomon and Glenn Lao held vigil, along with five others, to await of my coming. It was a refreshing sight at this vantage scanning the bright lights of the part of the metropolis. The two bridges linking the island of Mactan with the mainland sparkled in the clear air while vehicle lights would repeatedly glint as they travel along lighted avenues and urban byways. Across another campsite faraway firelights danced and twirled and we thought it to be St. Elmo's fire.

Manwel was also awake and he was grinning ear to ear and I greeted him congratulations for graduating from elementary school. And gave him a high five. Yeah! Cool! After Ernie helped me set up my borrowed Coleman tent I decided to call it a night - or day - whichever is appropriate. Yes, I slept without even unfolding my sleeping bag and I didn't know that. I was that exhausted.

I woke up at nine and I noticed that they have already cleared the campsite. Mine was the only tent left standing. Por dios mio! I quickly broke camp and stowed all my belongings inside my bag. While I was busy, Glenn L and Boy Toledo where talking to the group. It surprised me to see Brian Gera present. Now we are four CeMS members leading a “mixed group of eighteen member-applicants and guests from bisdakcentral.com and from NCR”.

After a photo session and prayers by Vince, Dusty of bisdakcentral.com with her brother and friend, decided to part ways with us, with them going by way of the easy Babag Ridge Road exiting at Garaje in Busay while we will follow our scheduled route down for Kahugan Trail and back into Napo then Guadalupe. Without a surplus of time I skipped breakfast and gave away my part to Manwel and to his cousin, Paterno. We gave the boys their guide and errand fees and we left them our surplus of unused canned goods, noodles and snacks.

Boy T led the downhill route while Brian and Glenn L acted as backstop. Me, well, I just went with the flow of the pace and content myself without working my mind on managing the speed of the group. The sun was hot and all felt and bothered by the heat. We met fellow hikers from MONC going the other way and we exchanged smiles and short conversations with them. We arrived, finally, at Napo at 11:30 AM and all ordered cold softdrinks to whittle away the thirst.

Travelling at the asphalt road under the near noontime sun would be a useless exercise and we all settled to ride motorcycles-for-hire by twos instead and reached the parish grounds of Guadalupe safely and quickly. It was a successful assessment and training climb by Boy T, Glenn L, Brian and me on the fine young member hopefuls; with which event ran parallel to an ongoing climb undertaken by eight CeMS vanguards on the Cuernos de Negros Mountain Range.

The climb at Mt. Babag were ably steered by Boy T and Glenn L with support from Brian and Ernie. At the end of the activity, four of the participants submitted their membership-application papers to Boy T - a gesture which elicited an approving smile from him. Jolly good show Boy T! You have finally arrived.

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