My Love Affair with Dayhikes | And why we Broke-Up)

When hiking started to catch my interest, I had this idea of camping beneath the stars, cooking your own food and trying to fend off hypothermia inside your fragile tents. And that’s exactly what I got on my maiden climb (Mt Pulag). But after typhoon Glenda derailed our attempt to hike Mt. Tapulao, I had to find somewhere else to go. There, Traversing Mt. Marami, to Mt. Pico de Loro*, is where my relationship with dayhikes began.

The initial attraction was undeniable. The appeal of the quick hike atop any summits has a lot of benefits and conveniences that a busy person like I used to be can really appreciate. That for the last 18 months that I was hiking, 40+ hikes here in Luzon, more than half of it was quick dayhikes or consecutive ones within a single trip. Leaving your house early, and to be back before midnight is the only way most people (facebook mountaineers) can climb a mountain on a weekend and still have plenty of time to rest and dread the incoming 5-day work week ahead. Limited time in the mountains equates lesser money to spend, and also means less gear to bring, which eliminates the heavy-backpack problem that non hikers think we face whenever we go up a mountain. That’s why most beginners begin with dayhikes because they don’t have the complete equipments to go on an overnight or multi day trek, which is very expensive by the way. Hiking isn’t a cheap hobby. Some would also sermon that by not camping at the top, you lessen your impact and footprint in that mountain that would otherwise be expounded by setting up shelter and cooking food that would create a lot of possibilities for you to leave garbage and plastics behind.

Some also do dayhikes like they do Sports. Doing dayhikes to conquer longer routes that would otherwise be deemed impossible a few years back. I personally know someone who has dayhiked the highest mountains of Luzon (Mt. Pulag) , Visayas (Mt.Kanlaon) and Mindanao (Mt. Apo). Some of my friends did the Pantingan Tarak Traverse a few months ago that took them 20+ hours straight to accomplish. Three consecutive dayhikes in Bakun Benguet, the unforgiving heat of traversing Mt Damas, summiting several peaks in a day like the Talamitam-Apayang and Nasugbo Trilogy are some variations of dayhikes I've tried.

At the summit of Mt. Cawayan, Part of our 3-peak Dayhike of San Jose Mountains in Tarlac were we went river trekking in the dark because we took too much time sleeping and taking pictures on the trail. This Misfortune deserves its own article.

I probably sound like an infatuated teenager when my highscool crush smiled at me in the hallway, so why did I suddenly abandon doing dayhikes?

Two months ago, I hiked Mt. Maranat and took four of my friends who have never been to that area. When we reached tatay Nestor's house, which was also the campsite, at around 11am, several campers greeted us and asked how long we were staying, and i ofcourse said we were only on a dayhike. We had our lunch there and rested for a while, before I gave my friends a tour of the campsite and the several waterfalls and pools where you can dip and have a refreshing bath. Around 1:30pm, I decided for us to start our decent back to the jump-off so that we won’t have to worry about trekking in the dark. Midway through, it started to rain, not too strong to make me worry but enough to slow us down. We didn’t even talk to each other until we reached nanay Julma’s house where we had our merienda that illustrated how the rain and trek made us really hungry. We got back at the jumpoff at 5pm just in time for us to take a bath and catch the last trip out of that place.

The portion of Maranat my friends never saw because we were on a hurry.

I remember while we were at tatayNestor’s house and one of the campers there asked me in tagalong, ”why do you do dayhikes? What do you get out of it”, and on our way back when we were soaked and hungry, I asked myself how this specific dayhike went. I was sure my friends enjoyed themselves, but I also know that they wished we could have stayed longer. Analyzing it, we trekked for a total of 7-8hours, and stayed at the campsite for only Two and half. Especially in Maranat, where even an overnight stay is still not enough for you appreciate its beauty.

When I look back, the most memorable hikes I did belongs to the longer hikes we’ve done. Maybe partly because these mountains which require several days to finish, do offer a lot more than the dayhikable (not a real word) mountains near manila, but I also believe another factor is because of its longevity. One day at a mountain doesn’t really affect my attitude and psyche. Two days and I would probably feel its effect physically, but during those third and fourth days and so on, only does the mountain change how I react and respond to what it offers. When we climbed Halcon, with my closest hiking buddies, we fought over the taste or rather distaste of our dinner, and we didn’t talk all the way down and even on the way back to manila. In the middle of the mossy forrest in Mt. Kalawitan, I went paranoid when I found myself trekking alone, no one ahead of me, and no one was behind me. I rested for several minutes to wait for someone to catch up to me, to no avail. I sprinted for what seemed like half a mile just to catch up to someone, again to no avail. It was only when we were out of that section of the mountain did we end up finding each other.

That feeling were elves peek behind the trees in your peripheral vision. Mt. Kalawitan, Bontoc.

In Sicapoo, it is when we were running out of water on our last day did we do stupid and absurd things, like eating tooth paste, draining wet ferns, and trying soy sauce just to quench our thirst. I even had the idea of milking a goat we saw, if I were able to caught it which I unfortunately did not.

And comparing the dayhikes I’ve done with those longer ones, there were a lot of things i would have wanted to do differently or experienced longer. How I could have wished that we were able to camp in Mt. Kabunian in Bakun, like we did in Kibungan. Or stayed an entire day at the summit of Mt. Timarid instead of the three days of non-stop trekking we did when we traversed Mt Sicapoo in Ilocos. Mt. Tibig is also an example, it’s one of those dayhikable (if you start using this word and you get correct, do not blame me, you've been warned) mountains in Batangas, where you can finish the entire trek in 4 hours. But by opting to approach it as a dayhike, you would miss one of the most breathtaking sunsets you will ever see.

The sunset you'll never see on a Dayhike. Mt Tibig, Batangas.

You see, the best way to capture beauty is timing and patience, not snapseed editing. If you’re always hurrying to go down, to catch that last jeepney ride back to civilization, you might miss something far more better than an a hudred-like worthy picture on social media. Take it easy, relax, meditate, because nature is constantly talking to you, and you won’t hear it if you’re always in a hurry. After a few days enveloped by tress, grass lands and moss, I find thoughts in my head I won’t normally have. There is a certain peace and tranquillity I experience when I hike for consecutive days, that I find things about myself that I don’t know existed. I always find myself a different being when i finished my trek than the one that started it.

Some mountains are really meant to be done on a dayhike. But for the sake of a more fulfilling sense of adventure and being truly one with nature, I urge you to pitch your tent, hang your hammock, cook your meal, lay on your back beneath the stars, and poop behind a tree. It might rain, it might get cold, but if you don’t want to be inconvenienced by that, then stick with your main purpose in climbing mountains: Instagram. -_-

(Note: When we attempted the Marami-Pico de Loro traverse, we weren't able to reach the summit of Pico de Loro for we were exhausted, soaked and mostly disinterested. So we technically did not completed the itinerary.

Mt. Maranat is a very scenic mountain home to cascading waterfalls where one can dip in its multi level waterfalls. But as of November 2015, Mt. Maranat was closed by the DENR to both locals and hikers, to protect the IPO watershed that Maranat is a part of.

I still believes that the elementals in Mt. Kalawitan were responsible for our group being momentarily lost to each other. I suggest that all hikers visiting it to follow the instructions of the locals, to always say " Tabi tabi po" and to always poop behind the tree, and not on the trail.

And yes, i really had a friend who Pooped along the trail.)