A day in the Hike: Ride the Lightning

Mt balingkilat is one of the famed mountain of zambales, together with cinco picos, each mountain offers a unique set of challenges , and entry to the to anawangin,nagsasa and silanguin cove.

Mt balingkilat is also known for its hot environment, because there are no tree covers on the trail troughout the summit. On the first part of the trail, the grass are so grown that it touches your face and nearly covers the trail.

After an hour , you will emerge to kawayanan,(bamboo part of the trail) where there are small river that serves as the only water source of the entire climb. From here to the summit it will be a non stop assault to rocky open trail.

Depends on how fast you climb, it will take 3 to 4 hours to reached the summit.

Based on the internet, our research shows that it is better to climb Mt balingkilat early in the morning, because

there is no shade to comfort you from the scorching heat of the sun.To avoid the intense heat and sure sunburn

we start our trek at 3:30am.

Based on the intenaries from the internet also, mt balingkilat is climable for 5-6 hours. So if we start early, we can descend early .

We started walking at 3:30am ,our pace was much faster than normal, because it is colder. With our limited vision

and lights, we arrived in the water source at 4:30am. The guide decides it is still early to start the ascend and it might be too difficult because he had no headlamp. As precautions , we just rest until the sun shines. We had breakfast here and prepare mentally and physically for the steep assault that lies ahead. Also, I have an opportunity to try the homemade fire can,which proves to be efficient and strong as it lights the entire area.

Home Made Fire Can

At 5:45am we are now ready to start the assault , slowly we are starting to gain elevation. Climbing this early morning relieves us from the heat, as it was the cold wind that embraces us and welcomes us from our journey.

Morning View

The view was stunning beautiful as you can see the sun slowly rising from the east as it lights all the surrounding, from the subic bay to the mountains of zambales.

Every now and then we rest our legs, it is better to rest when we get tired than push it all way to avoid cramps.

The rest becomes longer as we continue our assault . After 4 hours we arrived at the summit. it was very foggy and windy. There are no view everywhere. So what we did we just ate our lunch, and wait until the clouds disappear. After 30 mins , our jaw drops from the beauty that engulfed us. Here you will see the Gods amazing creation and feast your eyes from the beauty that touhes your inner soul.

They said that there are water source on the summit, however it was drained out. So meaning, we did not carry enough water to sustain us from our way down. We rested too much on the top that we start our descend at 1:00pm. The sun will sometimes shows, sometimes it will be covered by the clouds. During the time that the sun shines hit us, We proved to ourselves that the rumor was true. It was intense, with little water and no food we descend faster and no rest stop. We arrived at the watersouce 10mins to 2pm. We refreshed ourselves , and recharge our water supply . We decide to rest from here longer. At 3pm we resume our trek. On this part of the trail it was an easy walk, the hard part only was the heat and the cogon grass. At 4pm we are back at the jump off,

share stories with the locals and tidy up. At 4:30pm we are waiting for the tricycle to take us back to subic

At 6pm were back at subic, ate dinner and part ways with chieftain balosbalos.

Signature Pose

Magnificent view

Locals , Guide and chieftain told us that Balingkilat dayhike is rarely done, And told us some stories why it was called balingkilat , the mountain was the favorite landing spot of the lightning .. Sometimes I wonder if i can get the lightning teeth,that Ramon Revilla once have on one of his anting anting movies.They also shared that during the Pinatubo eruption, the place was almost gone from the map. It was entirely covered of dust and mud.

How did they recover,, as they said,,the rest is history..

And for our climb.. well its part of our history