Climbing Mount Pinatubo

written on December 3rd, 2012 by Denise Suarez

Even though my body is incapable of hard-core physical exercise, I have never said no to any travel experience. This is why when asked if I wanted to go to Mount Pinatubo, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

Mount Pinatubo is an active volcano located in the borders of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga. It is famous for its eruption in 1991. Its ashes, apparently, reached as far as the United States. Over in Metro Manila,we kiddies thought it was snowing.

For this trip, however, all I care about is that Mount Pinatubo spewed so many ashes that the ashes formed lots and lots of mountains; mountains which I will have to climb in order to get to Mount Pinatubo’s crater.

The trip begins at 4:30 in the morning with a three-hour drive to Pampanga. Once we arrived in Pampanga, we climb into an old, beaten up Land Cruiser.The next leg of the journey involves a one-hour ride as far as these cars can go. The trip is pretty bumpy and I’m shocked to see people walking. We’re in the middle of nowhere and there’s no sight of their destination. According to our guide, Armand, several tribes of Aeta are nearby and they’re walking from one to another.

We know our 4×4 car ride is near its end when we spot a “parking lot” full of Land Cruisers.

As we get down from the car, our guide tells us the crater is around two and a half hours away. By then, it’s nine in the morning and we know we won’t get any lunch until we’re back in town so we begin our hike, ready to conquer our own version of the Lord of the Rings.

The hike itself isn’t hard. Unlike Batad, there aren’t a lot of steep steps and unlike Sagada, there are no ditches which involve jumping from one rock to another. I’m pretty much just walking around enjoying the weather; even though the sun was shining, there was a very cool breeze – thank god we went in January. I would hate to do the trek under the sweltering heat of April. Every now and then, we pass through streams. It’s at these points that we really have to follow the guide’s steps. One wrong plant can mean anything from a damp foot to a brutal wet fall.

After two hours or so, we reached, according to the sign, the beginning of our trek.

Apparently, years ago, the Land Cruisers could go as far as that point but thanks to the past storms, the “roads” have become impassable for the cars.

Thanks to the sign, we know the end is only 15 minutes away. All that separated us from the crater was a seemingly endless flight of stairs (of which I have no pictures because no one wanted to remember them).

At the top, however, I was greeted with the most beautiful and refreshing site.

Only to find out that in order to get to the bottom of the crater, I will once again have to climb down more steps.

According to our guide, the lake at the shallow point is 300 feet deep. They don’t know how deep the middle is because no one has been able to measure it. The lake is also supposed to be high in sulfur which is why it’s not advisable to swim; but my legs felt so tired and sore that I couldn’t help but take a quick dip.

There were boats available that take you to the next cove which has a hot spring. At 350 pesos/head, I was not willing to pay but sme of my companions were.

The rest of us spent our time preparing for the trek back by getting some much needed rest.

Eventually, the grumbling in our stomachs overshadowed our desire to enjoy the view and we began fixing our things and climbing the stairs to go back to our Land Cruiser.

The hike going back wasn’t as bad as going there. For some reason, it didn’t take as long.  I was just enjoying the weather and my surroundings – it felt like we were the only people in the world. Before I knew it, we were back in the parking lot, in the Land Cruiser, ready to go home.

Author: Denise Suarez