Mt. Pico de Loro
Hello again!
So I have been planning on taking on adventures in the mountains this Summer '15 and the first one on my list is Mt.Pico de Loro, Batangas. I chose to take on Mt. Pico first because it's so accessible in terms of the distance going there and we could bring our own car. Also, it has been described by some bloggers as the "begginers' trail" so I got the idea that it basically involves a lot of hiking, which I have done before at a mountain in Nueva Ecija for our NSTP where we planted trees (I wonder how those trees are doing now). But oh boy, was I so wrong. Before I figuratively take you around Mt.Pico and tell you how breathtakingly beautiful it is, I feel that I have the responsibility to show my fellow newbies the technical trail aspects of Mt.Pico first so that:
1. You know what to expect.
2. To convince you that hiring a tour guide is a smart decision (Plus you'll be helping their little economy there)
3. Because even though going on adventures is a whole lot of fun, you got to be a whole lot of smart as well.
Oh, and before you go to any mountain adventure, there's this app called PH Mountains you could download for free from the app store where it gives you the full list of mountains in the Philippines and you could get complete information and weather reports for each mountain.
Mt. Pico has four faces
Exhibit 1: The Rocky Road
This is the first trail characteristic you will encounter at Mt. Pico, huge beautiful rocks you probably have only seen in movies where lead actors get washed up on shore in a deserted island. Word of caution though, these rocks are touched by water from the mountains so they're quite slippery and a lot of them are moveable so be very careful where you place your feet and find stable rocks to step on.
Exhibit 2: Steep Creeps
There are a lot of elevated parts going up to the peak and it's very tiring to conquer. The tip is to keep moving forward, do not take a break in the middle of a steep obstacle as it may increase your chances of slipping. Take a break once you reach plane land.
Exhibit 3: Log Jams
You will encounter some beautifully placed logs where you could rest first. But there are logs so big that you need to ride on it to get over it. Be careful as it gets really slippery when it rains.
Don't worry though, you do not need to cross going to anywhere via logs (like how it looks like on the photo below, my friend just had a little too much fun!
Exhibit 4: Loose Soil
Going up to the second peak, you need to conquer a combination of loose soil+steepness. Your feet wouldn't have any sure thing to step on so we really needed assistance in this part and you are in danger of rolling down this part of the mountain so we practically semi-crawled our way to the top. Also, going up to the second peak is optional so if you're afraid of heights, or one of your friends are, think twice before you go up this challenging part of Mt.Pico because it's really high up and it's very crowded up there.
And now that I've fulfilled my responsibility, I would like to gush about how amazing Mt.Pico was for me!
We left Alabang at 6am (you could use the app Waze and set your destination point to Pico de Loro Trails) and got there at around 7:40am where we parked our car on the side of the street and you'll see the entrance (the "jumpoff point") to your left where need to register and pay P25.00 for the entrance fee and you could also request a tour guide there whose rate is P1,500.00.
Important note: Take a restroom break at the nearest gas station befor you reach Pico de Loro because the restrooms at the jumpoff point are very very dirty and unusable!
We didn't expect that it would be a rainy day in Mt.Pico so there was a slight drizzle of rain and the wind was so cool so even if we were tired and sweaty, it still felt heavenly.
Also, sudden bursts of sun like in the photo below gives a whole new glorious color to the monotonous nature we were surrounded with throughout the trek.
There's also this cool bamboo tunnel leading to the first peak.
It took us 3 hours to get to the first peak where you will first be greeted by colorful tents (no, I would not recommend camping there because it could be crowded and a bit messy based on what I saw. Don't worry about getting hungry or running out of drinks in the middle of the trek because there's a sari-sari store set up there 30 minutes before you reach the first peak where you could buy snacks, coffee, halo-halo, mais con hielo and big bottles of water (for only P50.00 so it's not so overpriced).
And finally, here's our view from the first peak! It was foggy but the fog actually gave a magical touch to it as it sort of served as a curtain that revealed the view whenever the wind blew the fog away.
We ate lunch here at the first peak and took lots of pictures (I'm the official photographer of the group, so they cant complain if I ask them to take tons of photos of me).
Make sure you properly dispose your trash, do not litter! Put it back inside your bag :)
From the first peak, you'll see the second peak (which looks more like the Parrot's Beak to me rather than the monolith that's actually the Parrot's beak, anyway I'll show you later!). It only takes 15-20 minutes to get to the second peak from the first peak, depending how fats you could overcome Exhibit 4!
If you do decide to go up to the second peak, you'll have an even more amazing view of Pico de Loro where you could see the beautiful combo of beaches+mountains! I couldn't get a pretty good shot of the view from the second peak because of the fog so I guess you have to go see it for yourself, yeah?
Here's an attempted shot though, see the beach down there at the left?
And of course you'll also get to see the most important part of Mt.Pico: the parrot's beak (which the locals call the monolith). And yes those are people up there! You could climb up the monolith using a rope (maybe I'll try it next time) but do be mindful of the long line of people waiting for their turn.
Going down Mt.Pico was much faster as it only took us 2 hours to get back to the jumpoff. Don't forget to splash your face with water from the springs there, it's so cold! The perfect ending to make you realize what you just conquered and another awesome adventure you've just been on!
'Til the next adveture! And remember, safety first and love the earth!