Climb#17: Mt. Romelo Dayhike

Acknowledgement: Love of Brotherhood and Outdoors (L.O.B.O. Mountaineers)

After 4 months of city view, I’m ready to my backpack where it belongs. Up up here we go!

The Meeting Place:

Based from the blogs I’ve read, one of the  most common meeting place would be for those coming from Manila would be at Edsa Shaw where you can hire jeepneys to bring you to jump off.

Going there:

map :)

From Jolibee, Crossings, we arranged for a jeep to take us to the jump off in Siniloan. The actual jump off is about 2-3km (I think) from the “town” where the Raymund Bus terminal is located. This is still part of Siniloan. We would have got lost (thanks to the driver who “knew” where the jump off was) if it wasn’t to the friendly locals of this barangay. We asked where Mt. Romelo/Mt. Fami’s jump off was and they were more than happy to help us.

Before we went on our way, we ate a hearty breakfast, coffee and I filled my bottle with water at Trois restaurant. (This by the way is one of the pit stops of buses going to Lucena).

And on we go:

The sign with some official's face.

From the jump off sign along the highway, we walked about 1km to the barangay where the registration is located. The registration fee is a whopping 50 pesos per person. According to the registration personnel, since the municipality started to get involved with the registration, they had to increase the fee from 15 pesos to 30. If I heard it right, 30 pesos goes to the municipal hall and the barangay gets 20 pesos (again this is just based from what I heard).

We also arranged for a guide to take us to 3 of the falls. They probably know where the much talked about Sampaloc falls is but since we are only there for a day hike, we contented ourselves with just 3 falls as time would not have permitted us to visit the other falls. I believe there’s about 7 falls to see from Mt. Romelo.

First part of the trail was a small river crossing. Expect your shoes to get wet. After the river part, first time trekkers were in for a surprise.

Muddy and Bloody Hell!

Seriously?!?

Ok. So yeah, I’m just exaggerating here. :) But man that trail was .... For someone like me, who first of all DO NOT WANT LIMATIK or any creepy crawlers on me, and just had my shoes cleaned. But then again, I’m still so much thankful that the weather was fine that day. It could have been worse. We all thought this would be just an easy trek. Alas! We were reminded, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE the mountains.

There are several stores along the way (about 3 if I remember it right). They sell buko (coconut) juice fresh from the fruit itself and Mountain Dew soda (see the relevance?).

From the 2nd store, it’s about 30-45minutes more to the clearing. Here we had our photos taken with what seems to be mountain cotton (turns out to be ferns, but still J).

We decided to walk the road less taken (and I found out later, one of the limatik haven). That one solid vertical climb sure got my heart pumping and readied me for the sceneries I am about to witness, at the peak of Mt. Bulongeta.

view from the top

After our picture was taken, we hurriedly went on our way as limatiks tried their best to cope up with us. Again, we had to endure the muddy trail with a few limatiks in combat mode.

Finally we reached our destination. The Buruwisan falls. That’s when I understood why many others braved the muddy and (ok slightly) bloody trail again and again. The simple yet captivating beauty of this falls makes every step on the mud filled trek worthwhile.

My shooting skills did the falls no justice

A little after 12nn, the group ate their packed lunch. While others stayed in Buruwisan, I, along with few others, explored Lanzones falls. The basin like bottom of this falls is just as inviting as Buruwisan, only it offers much cooler and clearer water.

Lanzones Falls

After a while, we decided to head back and try to explore Batya-batya falls. Sadly, our guide cannot provide us estimate as to how long it would take for our group to reach this other falls. Since we are on a tight schedule, we decided to head back instead. I took a deep breath knowing we’ll be facing the mud and limatik once more.

Finally, all our group mates are already back at the jump off and soon we were riding the flying jeep whose driver brought us back to Shaw in record time (2 hours more or less and that includes dropping off several passengers). I was just glad we all came back in one piece and with just enough time to enjoy the unli-rice of Mang Inasal :)

The damage was less than 500 for a group of 18, that includes the roundtrip fare, exit fee (as I call it, the money required by the tricycle drivers from the jeepney drivers if they will be picking up your group from the road near Trios), guide fee (400 2-way with 3 falls tour), registration (as of sept 2012 its 50 per person), buko and softdrinks, wash up fee, etc.

Here's the group's IT:
0400: Departure to Siniloan
0630:Arrival Siniloan, breakfast at Trois, registration
0800:Start trek
1100:Arrival Buruwisan
1200: Lunch
1400: Descend
1600: Jumpoff arrival, bought fruits
1830: Departure to Manila
2030: Arrived in one piece at shaw, dinner at mang inasal

Blogger’s Note:

While it is evident that the barangay or the municipality or both of them are trying to commercialize this place by putting up kubo for rent, it is either by the tourist efforts or the people who guards these kubo that kept the trail and the falls from being too polluted. I have only seen a few plastic bottles floating and they seem new to me, which suggest that efforts are being made to keep the falls and the rivers that way.

I would however suggest for the local municipality to educate the guides and the residents of this lovely barangay to watch over tourist and teach them how they themselves could contribute into the preservation of this eco-tourist paradise. I have seen visitors washing their utensils and bathing themselves with shampoo and probably with soap in Buruwisan falls. This would pollute the water coming down the river streams, which are being used by the barangays downstream.

To my fellow visitors, let us learn how to respect nature. We can be part of the problem or the solution. We have the freewill to choose which side we’re on :)