There are many things those who climb mountains can’t say about the mountains. When we city folk look at mountains from the lowlands or from the sea, they become plain geographical features, heaping mounds of rock and earth with some green on them, or backdrops for our Instagram posts. And when we imagine the task of climbing them, mountains immediately take the form of a “journey,” a “conquest,” or a “goal,” and we look forward to it as an event that would define us for at least a few days. Memories of a climb crowd our heads as impressions of a trail, an organized campsite, or a view that made us forget about ever climbing down. Mountains are always “something else.”

When I first started climbing mountains in 2011, I saw myself as invincible: a fresh creative writing grad of the University of the Philippines Diliman enjoying an unemployed year and at the same time starting on my master’s in the same field. What a privilege. 

In the first of three training climbs I joined as an applicant of the UP Mountaineers, I barely had sleep before boarding the bus to Tarlac. I tried more than half a dozen ways to pack my bag the night before because I imagined 40 different scenarios when I would need to take out six liters of water, or my windbreaker, or my packed lunch, or trail mix, or a stove. It was my first time to assemble a meal and arrange equipment for a climb, and most of the things I tried to fit in the borrowed bag I had also borrowed from friends in Quezon City. 

I was a mess. I had taken a bath before leaving the house but after carrying my pack from our front door to the car, I was already sweating. And just as I was falling asleep in the early-morning bus ride, it was time to transfer to the jeep that would take us to the foot of the mountain. We were sandwiched by our bags and we swayed from side to side as the vehicle negotiated each turn. I envied the efficiency of the malong in putting everyone else in the jeep to sleep. Paul, our team leader, tied his to the jeep’s safety handles on its ceiling and put his head inside.

It took a walk of a few kilometers over a gravel road and puddles of water to get to the jump-off point. Most of us had bought new shoes for the occasion and were careful not to get them dirty. My companions tiptoed around mud cakes and walked over concrete drainage at the side. My shoes were new, too, but they were waterproof and therefore (I thought) better, and at that moment I had the opinion that I was with weaker climbers. Sure, my bag was heavy but I couldn’t have packed it any better. I had thought this through all night, unlike (I thought) the ones behind me, a proud fresh grad of UP Diliman taking his master’s.

Tangisan

Mount Tangisan seemed unintimidating from its foot and looked just like an oversized hill. Beside it is Mount Bungkol Baka, and the two made for the typical portrait of rural life we drew as kids: two bumps over flat rice fields, their summits seen from the floor. It couldn’t be longer than an hour’s trek up, I thought; two, max. But it couldn’t have been an hour since we started trekking up the trail that I went from the front to the rear of the group. Inside my new shoes my feet were swimming in puddle water—owing to their being waterproof, water didn’t drain out—and my whole body begged for a break. 

When we finally made a rest stop, I pulled my trail mix out and my bag was immediately subjected to scrutiny. The group’s sweeper, Patacs, repacked my bag for me in less than 10 minutes, spitting expletives while taking my stuff out piece by piece and punching them back in. He wanted to know why my six liters of water were at the bottom and told me the load would surely pull me down: “Bakit nasa may pwetan ‘yung six liters mo? Hihilain ka talaga niyan pababa!”

We got to the campsite before sunset, but it didn’t have much of a view. We were in the thick of the rainy season, the first weekend of August, and the campsite’s grass floor was wet. I finally understood what dampened spirits meant. 

My companions cooked a pork stew—sinigang na baboy—and even prepared a llanera of strawberry-flavored Jello for dessert. They shared these with me, the group’s weakest link. I was too beat to even slice okra and kangkong. I remembered that in the qualifying 6.6-kilometer run for the climb, I literally crossed the line one second before the cutoff. Coach Danny, our physical fitness officer at that time, celebrated with me as I was close to passing out. He gave me high fives, smiling with all his teeth out, and encouraging me to do better next time: “Galingan mo sa sunod, pards!”

My story of climbing mountains would be like that for many, many times: told from the back of the pack. I would start with so much gusto, so much confidence, only to cuss myself after the first quarter of the trek up the trail for even thinking of joining the venture. Still, I am afraid to say that mountains are there to humble us.

Pulag

In our induction climb in December 2011 (predictably, I failed the October exams), we were met with strong wind and rain on top of Mount Pulag. There were 13 of us in the group and what was described in reports as the deadliest storm in the world that year, Typhoon “Sendong,” was raging in Mindanao. But as typhoons of those magnitudes go, it affected the wind systems as far away as Benguet. There was only one other group, a trio, dumb enough to climb Pulag that weekend, we were later told at the base camp.

Stepping out of the mossy forest and into the plains at Pulag’s ridgeline, at the “playground of the gods,” we were met by a view we didn’t expect. The wind blew and carried large drops of rain from the floor, from the sides of the mountain, to the sky. Outside the forest, the world had turned upside down; above us was the sea, and we were caught in its waves, crashing. 

One of us was nursing a fever before the climb; he grew sicker on our way up Akiki Trail and was close to passing out at that point. We reckoned that it was going to be to our disadvantage if we were to stick together longer, the cold biting us hard, so we broke off in pairs. 

Clouds and fog flew by and we couldn’t see beyond the hills we were on. Truly tired and panicking when I couldn’t see a campsite anywhere near, I was swept off my feet, mid-step, by a gust of wind. I sat on a rock, exhausted. My girlfriend at that time said my face had turned pale and my lips looked dead. In tears and caught by emotion, I gave her my goodbyes. My tears, I noticed, were crawling upward with the wind, not down. In the middle of that mess, I told her, shaking, “Happy monthsary!” It was true, and she pulled me up in response. 

My pack cover, which I had borrowed from Red and was stretched taut across my bag, was peeled off and carried away by the wind. A full hill behind me, Red watched as it disappeared into the clouds.

We reached the ranger’s station, a four-post wooden house at the margins of the clearing, and found our guide and the other group of climbers inside. Our guide was a local, probably in his late 50s, with a thin layer of flesh over his bones, and he was cold and barely able to speak. We asked him questions—what was his name, how he was feeling, if he had food or anything else on him—and he couldn’t respond. We figured that he was experiencing hypothermia. We lit a stove for him to warm himself, to try to cook noodles on, and wrapped him in a mylar emergency blanket. 

We were able to pitch only one five-man tent in which the 13 of us spent the night, without dinner, huddled in the strangest positions. 

The next morning, under the sun, we were inducted as club members.

It was no longer raining as we made our way down Pulag, but the wind was still strong. Our team leader, Eka, called off the climb to the summit, saying it was still too dangerous. On the Ambangeg trail, I turned around every so often to look at the summit we were leaving behind. It hid behind the clouds but I could see it—there—the mightiest summit in my head.

Did the mountain humble me? I still hesitate to say yes. Can I say that the mountains—Pulag, in particular, standing 2,928 meters above sea level—serve us humans a purpose, and that is simply to humble us? I don’t know. All I know is that when I was there, it was there, too, with the wind and the cold and the rain. It has always been there and it will be there far longer than any of us. The mountain just is.