Beautiful disaster - take 4

Back in 2014, while standing by the crater lake of Mt. Pinatubo from the Capas, Tarlac side, I wondered how nice the view would be like staring at the Volcano from one of its peaks. There was something about this volcano that captured me. From the 1.5 hour 4x4 Jeep ride on a lahar covered road, plus A few river crossings here and there, and a short hike to the caldera, it was indeed a sight to behold.

Looking back at what happened in 1991 when the once thought of dormant volcano started ejecting lahar among other things, I would have figured that so much has changed. Now there’s a mix of greenery. The only way to describe it in my mind is a beautiful disaster.

In 2015, with much pestering from my friends, I organized a tour back to this eerie place. My friends enjoyed the trip, but I knew there was more to it than just a 4x4 jeep ride and hiking a couple of kilometers to the crater lake.

Mountain climbing brought me there in 2016 thanks to a two-day overnight hike from the Delta5 -Sapang Uwak trail via Porac, Pampanga. 50kms, no 4x4 jeeps, old fashion style. The sun is unforgiving as expected and being on foot, we had to alternate walking on lahar, sharp rocks and crossing rivers. It was one of the toughest hikes that I’ve been to at the time. I did it, I could finally cross it off my list and move on to other things, I thought.

For my 2017 year end thing, I got to do a tougher Delta 5 trail as a dayhike this time. It was intended as training for an upcoming run, and the conditions are almost similar. It was up North and I needed to get used to running in the heat. Needless to say, it was a good emulation of what I should expect in my upcoming road run.

The view of course was more rewarding. 15 hours thereabouts is still a good time considering the substandard preparation coming in. My last major hike was sometime in April 2017 and was relying on muscle memory. It turned out to be a fun hike nonetheless. Since 2014, I have scaled this volcano once a year. I thought I’d stop in 2016. Maybe I’ll go again this year.