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Thursday, February 26, 2004
10, 311 feet closer to Nirvana
By Kristin Aldana-Lerin
Contributing Editor
On the first day of the climb, one of our sweepers, Ringgo Demacali, told me that wishes come 4true on Mt. Apo when a climber zealously dedicates his or her climb to Apo Sandawa, the guardian of the mountain.
This hasn’t been true in my case, so far, but I have not a sigh of regret, as scaling Mt. Apo has been one of the greatest episodes for me and 18 other mountaineers, in our love affair with nature’s heights and our insatiable thirst for adventure and the rush.
Our battle against gravity while going to our little archipelago’s roof started after an overnight boat ride from Cebu to Cagayan, and a seven-hour ride to Digos city passing Davao city.
Here we met our guides Noel “Yocs” Briones, a community organizer for Davao’s Archdiocesan Center for Ecumenical Inter-Religious Dialogue (Aceird), his buddies Cesar Putulin, Marlon Boiser, Ali Soler and Ringgo a.k.a. Rambo, all seasoned mountaineers from Davao, blessed to have Mt. Apo and the rest of Mindanao’s giants for their neighbors.
The first four hours of the trip was a muddy and bracing night trek from Brgy. Kapatagan, through the vast vegetable plantations that supply produce to most of Davao Del Sur.
The four-hour trek down a treacherously steep river gorge led to Sitio Tudaya, a village at the foot of the great mountain and home to the Tagabawa people, a sub-tribe of the Bagobo.
Before groggy faces packed up to start what was officially the climb’s Day One the next morning, Yocs requested Apo Aduk, elder and leader of the Tagabawas, to conduct a traditional ritual for us. Apo Aduk, by the way, is said to be 103 years old and still climbs Mt. Apo occasionally for religious reasons.
We didn’t understand a word, but Yocs said Apo Aduk prayed for good weather and safety. Some from the community joined the ritual and offered eggs to "Manama", "God" in the local dialect, on our behalf.
The gods must have heard Apo Aduk as the weather cooperated throughout the two-day ascent,
and it only rained on our first night at the peak.
After two days on the rugged terrain through the thick rainforest, the sight of a smoking vent surrounded by volcanic deposits of sulfur heralded the start of the last stage of the ascent – the boulders.
As the Hilary Step is to Mt. Everest, the boulders are to Apo. It is the last immense obstacle
standing between a climber and his goal – the summit.
The boulders are almost a half-day climb through jagged, unstable rocks with some the size of a two-story house. It was the most dangerous and technical stage of the climb. Even the most experienced climbers have fallen casualty to this pathless face full of huge cracks waiting to swallow an unwary climber.
We reached Apo’s dead crater, now a narrow, waist-deep lake easily the country’s highest body of water at more 10,000 feet, past 2 p.m. Minutes later we were ready to climb the last 200 feet towards the one thing we came for.
A rush of adrenaline filled our veins as we toiled the last few feet to the peak. Unlike any other summit we had climbed, Apo’s peak felt the most gratifying.
As we sat there, we were thankful to have accomplished what any brown-skinned mountaineer would love to have tucked under his belt. And we knew we owed it all to Mother Nature, for the only reason we got here was because she allowed us to.
Hitting camp past 4 p.m. was a relief. But the darkness, which brought with it temperatures reaching eight degrees below zero, soon dampened our elation.
Morning broke and with it a plethora of nature’s most breathtaking sights. As early as 5:30 a.m., we were back at the summit to watch, for most of us, the most picturesque sunrise we have ever woken up to witness.
Rays slowly radiating through the immaculate sky, the sun gradually appeared on the horizon to reveal Apo’s wonders. The boulders, Samal Island, Davao city’s coast, smoking vents, adjacent peaks, the dead crater, Mt. Talomo, the almost perfect cone of Mt. Matutum, Lake Venado and a profusion of things unseen in the lowlands, soon glowed before our eyes.
Right there we realized we were exactly where we wanted to be. We felt it in our bones.
The hardships we went through in the last three days were forgotten before the awe-inspiring scenery from 10,311 ft. high.
Just as kung-fu practitioners absorb chi in places close to nature, so do we roam farthest from civilization to breathe the freshest air of inner peace and tranquility with the pure, unmatched elation of intimacy with nature--and the thought of being closer to the clouds than most have ever been without having their feet leave the ground.
It is out here that one gets to really grasp that where boundaries draw a line lays the rage to go beyond. Out where the limits of human endurance are set, lays the passion to stretch the frontiers.
We got back to Davao exhausted but stuck in the nirvana of pushing ourselves to the limit – and hungry to be back again. Back on the mountain, where bonds were forged, strengths discovered, limits outdone and a renewed climber descended. Back on the mountain we would forever embrace.
(February 26, 2004 issue)
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