Hike for Light - Mt. Kanlaon

We had very little time to rest our weary legs after returning from the first hike.  We arrived in Manila on Monday evening, and were on a plane to Bacolod the following Friday.  This hike was Mt. Kanlaon, the tallest mountain in the Visayas region of the Philippines.  Kanlaon is an active volcano, and is known to have a large leech population along the trail.  Needless to say, we were pretty excited.

Our group for this climb was about half the size, and only 14 of us were allowed to climb.  However, our group this time included a couple different team Everest climbers, 4 Climbers from Negros Youth for the Environment, as well as the Menor brothers.  For those of you wondering who the Menor brothers are, where have you been?  Kidding, Ronel and Marlon Menor are two employees of Hybrid Social Solutions.  Marlon has been with the company longer than anyone except Jim himself, and is our highest grossing area sales manager.  Ronel is our technician, in charge of field testing and repairing all of our solar units.  Both gentlemen are super smart, athletic, humble, and annoyingly good at chess.  I consider myself to be a pretty good chess player, but have only managed to beat Ronel 3 times out of maybe 100 games.  I’ve never beaten Marlon.  Apparently both of them played for their high school in their local province and competed at the national level.  It’s to the point where I will think I’m winning, then make a move I think is pretty darn good, and Ronel says, “are you sure?”  And I’m like, ugh, no, I’m not sure, but that’s the move.  And he says, “ok, mate in 3, Danny.” 

We brought a chessboard on the hike, and the three of us played whenever we had spare time - the airport, the airplane, in our tent until late into the night up on the mountain.

We arrived in Bacolod, on the Island of Negros, and proceeded to our sleeping accommodation at the foot of the mountain.  In general our lodgings were much nicer on this climb.  We slept the first night in a dorm type room at a local hotel about a 5 minute drive from the trailhead.  There was running water, electricity, the works.  Our Hike organizer, Bambi, did the first turnover ceremony by herself the next day while we were hiking.  We were sorry to miss it, but had a second lantern turnover scheduled for the coming Monday.

This hike was a bit easier.  I think a lot of this had to do with us being in better shape, but it was also less steep, less muddy, and a shorter distance.  However, the first half of the hike is leech territory.  We had heard slightly exaggerated stories from the Everest climbers that had been on the mountain before, and it was a constant source of worry and group jokes leading up to the hike.  I did a fair amount of internet research, and sent tips to the group (The best advice I found is posted below). 

“Leeches are common in rainforests of Madagascar, mainland Africa, and Southeast Asia. Unlike leeches in other parts of the world, rainforest leeches live in leaf litter and vegetation -- they are not aquatic. They find their prey (you and other warm-blooded animals) by odor and sound vibrations. In leech-rich areas, if you stand still for a few minutes, you'll see leeches dropping from vegetation and moving toward you like inchworms.

Terrestrial leeches are generally small (although they can get quite huge in some parts of the world) but will gorge themselves during a meal, gaining up to ten times their weight. The single feeding will be enough to sustain a leech for several months.

The best protection against leeches is covering up and using insect repellent on clothing, although they are extremely persistent and invariably if you spend enough tromping around in the forest you will get leeched. Do not get overly concerned about a leech attack -- they carry no disease and there is low risk of causing significant blood loss. Leech bites do not hurt -- since they release an anesthetic when they sink their teeth into your skin -- but they do bleed profusely. Leeches use an anticoagulant when they bite to facilitate the flow of blood from the wound. “

Removing a leech

If you are bitten by a leech and are compelled to remove it before it has had its full (leeches drop off on their own when they are done feeding), you can do so by following these steps:

Identify the anterior (oral) sucker which will be found at the small end of the leech. Put your finger on your skin adjacent to the oral sucker Gently but firmly slide your finger toward the wound where the leech is feeding. Using your fingernail, push the sucker sideways away from your skin. Once you have dislodged the oral sucker, quickly detach the posterior (rear) sucker (the fat end of the leech). Try flicking the leech or proding with your fingernail. As you work to remove the leech, it will attempt to reattach itself. Keep the wound clean -- minor cuts in tropical climates can quickly become infected. The leech itself is not poisonous. The wound will itch as it heals.

NOTE: Is it generally not advised to attempt removing a leech by burning with a cigarette; applying alcohol, mosquito repellent, shampoo, or salt; or pulling at the leech. This can result the leech regurgitating into the wound and causing infection much worse than the leech bite itself" 

I personally set off for the hike with my pants tucked into my socks with REI bought insect repellent smeared around all openings in my clothing.  However, about 2 hours up the trail there was a waterfall with a deeper pool beneath it, and I just had to go swimming, leeches be damned. 

After all the fretting, the leeches turned out to not be that big of a problem.  Our guides told us we were lucky because it had been relatively dry lately, which meant fewer leeches.  However, we did see about 10 of them, and they are pretty creepy.  The creepiest thing is that you never feel them.  You just look down and this thing is on your hand or your pants wriggling around looking for a place to attach.  We sat down for a snack at one point, and a leech just fell onto my hand.  Like, literally dive-bombed me out of the foliage above.  

In general the hike was quite pleasant, beautiful weather, and we reached the campsite by around 2:00pm.  We set up camp and decided to head up to the summit  before dinner.  The hike to the summit is about 45 minutes from the campsite.  The campsite is right at the end of the tree line, and the surroundings are lush and green.  However, the scenery changes drastically on the hike up to the summit. The hike is mostly a scramble over loose volcano rocks, and you quickly climb past where anything can grow.  The summit provides an amazingly picturesque view.  It is possible to walk right up to the edge of the crater and look over the edge.  In one direction lies the crater with another tall peak on the other side, and in the opposite direction is the way back down, with lush green mountains in the distance.  We were above most of the clouds, and visibility changes rapidly.  One minute we could see for miles, and the next minute it’s difficult to see anything over 20 feet away.  The crater has an amazing echo, and we spent a while whooping, whistling, and throwing rocks over the edge. 

After about an hour of photo taking, we hiked back down to camp.  There was a moment on the hike down when the clouds parted, the sun came out, and there was a gorgeous view of the mountains below.  I could see our campsite, right on the edge of the tree line, and the old crater below it.  I sat and gazed for a few minutes, until the clouds moved back in and the view was gone.  

That night, we feasted on Chicken Adobo (Thanks Paulo!) and had another round of rum combined with telling the group about our thoughts on the hike for light and favorite moments so far. 

We got up the next day at 4:00 am, boiled some water for coffee in the dark, and headed back up to the summit in time to catch the sunrise.  It was absolutely beautiful, hard to describe, but fortunately I don’t have to.  We brought a professional photographer, Fung, along with us this time, and his specialty is 360 degree interactive photos.  Check out the link below.  If you zoom in really far you can see me sitting on the edge of the crater.  Hope Fung is able to join us on future hikes, this really is the only way to do this scene justice.

http://www.virtualphilippines.net/Panoramas/H4L/Kanlaon/Kanlaon_Crater.html

http://www.virtualphilippines.net/Panoramas/H4L/Kanlaon/Summit_Group.html

 

After hiking down, cooking breakfast, and breaking camp, we headed back down.  On the way back down, we dropped our bags off at one point, and hiked down into the old crater, a bright green valley surrounded by mountains on all sides.  It was quite a steep hike, roughly an extra hour of climbing, but totally worth it.  The crater is now flat, and covered with a grass-like fern.  It would have been a sweet place to camp, but the hike down with packs on would have been a little rough.

Once back on the trail we hiked down very quickly.  We were all excited to get back, and were blessed with Ronel’s singing top 40 hits from the last 15 years to give us encouragement.  With only a couple short stops, we were back at the base in about 3 hours.  We got there just when it started to rain for the first time, bought snacks from the local sari sari store, and played a few games of chess.  

When the rest of the group got back, we ate lunch, then bussed to the Mambukal Spring Resort which had…hot springs!  The whole place reeked of sulfur, and the pools were really hot, even by lobster standards.  We all soaked in the hot spring for about an hour, gazing up at the huge bats (flying foxes?) soaring overhead.  That night we had cheeseburgers and red horse (strong local beer) for dinner, the perfect meal for tired hikers.

First thing the next morning we headed to the second turnover ceremony in Guintubdan.  About 40 residents from a village quite a ways away, had been provided with transportation to Guintubdan to meet us for the turnover.  Jim flew down to meet us for the ceremony, and spoke to the group about the purpose of our organization and the benefits we had scene the lanterns have in nearby communities.  Representatives from local NGOs including the Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation and the Alliance for Development spoke, and Ronel gave a demonstration of how to set up the lantern, use the solar panel and charge a cell phone.

http://www.virtualphilippines.net/Panoramas/H4L/Kanlaon/Turnover_Group.html

The trip back went very smoothly, this time on a flight donated by Zest Airlines. 

Stay tuned for Mt. Majaas, Dec 15-18, just before I leave for Christmas in Seattle!!

Hike for Light - Mt. Kitanglad

The first Hike for light, Mt. Apo, was scheduled for November 18^th-21^st.  However, I received the following text on Nov. 16^th:

“Hi Danny, Please be informed that Mt. Apo Climb has been indefinitely postponed, as per recommendation of the LGUs and the 39^th Infantry Brigade. There have been heavy armed group movements and encounters within Mt. Apo lately.  We will confer again next week about the situation and we will see when we can reschedule the hike.  Sorry for the inconvenience this might have caused you.  We hope you understand your safety is important to us.”

This was quite a bummer, as we had all been pretty psyched for this first hike.  However, the second hike was scheduled for the following weekend.

The Mt. Kitanglad climb began at the international airport in Manila at 5am Friday morning.  The Manila Crew, consisting of 3 Solar Energy Foundation representatives, 2 Team Everest volunteers, and 2 significant others, boarded our flight (donated by Cebu Pacific Airlines) bound for Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao.  From Cagayan de Oro we traveled by van to the city of Malaybalay, kicking off the hike with lunch and a press conference prepared by the Office of Mayor Hon Inaki Zubiri.  Here we also met the rest of Team Everest, as well as the local climbers that would accompany us up the mountain.  We were 32 in all, a combination of awesome individuals from local climbing groups, nature NGOs, and Everest expeditions.  After lunch we piled our gear into a Jeepney and headed for the base of Mt. Dulang Dulang, the highest peak in the Mt. Kitanglad Range. 

Here is our evening itinerary:

1500 Lamp Use & Management Orientation – Turnover Ceremony

1700 Dinner - Prepare for Next day’s climb

1900 Ritual Sacrifice by the Talaandig tribe

2100 Lights out

The ritual sacrifice was performed by three elders from the village.  A white cloth was laid out on the table, and each hiker placed a 1 peso coin around the outside edge of the cloth, heads up.  Four bottles of “Fighter” brand wine were also placed on the table, along with a 1000 peso bill and a dozen eggs. After a prayer spoken by the most elder member of the tribe, they brought out three chickens, held them over a bucket, slit their throats one by one, and drained the blood into the bucket.  After being slaughtered, the chickens were tossed onto the ground, flapped around a couple times, then lay still. Once dead, the chickens were loaded into a pot and boiled for about an hour. 

While the chickens were boiling, we passed the lanterns to the tribal elders.  During the turnover ceremony, we showed them how to use the different settings, recharge the lantern, and charge a cell phone.  The most important part of this is to teach them the importance of charging the lantern every day.  Our lanterns use a deep cycle gel battery, which really isn’t designed to run all the way down to empty.  If that happens, they take much longer to recharge.  The advice we give them is to not let the battery drain down below 3 bars out of 5, which is sustainable if they monitor their usage and charge it every day.

The elders then served the three chickens to us, informing each hiker to pull off and eat a piece of meat.  Afterwards, they cut the white cloth into small pieces and tied one coin into each piece of cloth.  The next day we would carry these up the mountain for safety.

Dinner that night, as was the case for all meals on the Hike for light, consisted of canned tuna donated by Century Tuna.  Over the next 3 days we would get quite creative with our tuna combinations.  You know what goes great with rice?  Canned Tuna.  You know what goes great with bread and eggs?  Canned tuna.  You know what makes coffee taste great?  Drinking out of a cup recently filled with Canned Tuna.

We awoke at 4:30 the next morning and broke camp shortly after sunrise. We began along a slippery, rocky, dirt road, winding up the side of the mountain between assorted crops and farmhouses.  This soon turned into a thin, steep, muddy path through the forest that continued until the summit.  The scenery was spectacular, lush green mountains as far as the eye could see, and up close the deep greens of grasses, ferns and tree leaves. Thick moss grew along every tree, and the much of the forest looked like a scene out of Avatar.  The ground was so soft in places it would depress noticeably with each step. 

The hike to our campsite took about 8 hours.  We stopped for lunch next to a river making its way down the mountainside, and enjoyed some cans of Tuna and a couple granola bars.  You know what goes great with granola bars?  You guessed it.  I was a bit hesitant about drinking water from the river, as I remember my GHS Post 84 training about Giardia, etc present in natural water sources.  However, I didn’t really have much choice, as this was the only source of water throughout the hike. 

At our lunch spot was the first time I noticed that we had porters carrying a bunch of gear up to our campsite.  These were guys from the local village, payed roughly 12 dollars a day, carrying extra tents, sleeping bags and food up the mountain.  These guys were incredible, each one was about half my size, and carried a pack 3-4 times the size of my own.  One of them was wearing flip flops, and one was about 50 years old and BAREFOOT.  These guys were true champions, running up and down the mountain barely breaking a sweat.

Our campsite was about an hour hike from the summit, and we arrived by 4 in the afternoon.  This left us enough time to set up camp and cook dinner before nightfall.  Once it got dark (around 7:30), we all gathered in a circle around the light of our solar lantern.  Fred, a 60 year old gentlemen from team Everest, pulled out a little red and white cup which he had carried all the way up Everest many years ago.  He proceeded to pour himself a shot of Tanduay rum, and tell us a bit about himself and why he was there.  He then proclaimed that we would go around in a circle and all give a short introduction of ourselves and our involvement in the Hike for light.  And in the words of Fred, “if you don’t drink, you can’t talk!”  This initiated a raucous role call as each person was peer pressured into taking shots and giving a speech for the whole group.  After each person in their 20’s finished speaking, Fred (who was a bit tipsy by this point) would inquire – “Single? Are you single??”

It got cold that night, and I related during my speech that this was the first time I had felt cold since arriving in the Philippines 4 months ago.  It also rained throughout the night, and I ended up using all of the cold weather gear I had brought.  We headed for the summit at 4:30 in the pitch dark.  This trail was even steeper, and quite slippery under the wet conditions.  Much of it required scrambling using both hands to maintain balance.  We all reached the summit by 5:30, and took pictures for about an hour.  Unfortunately it was quite foggy and cloudy, and there wasn’t much of a view.  However, there was a grove of giant bonsai trees where we all hung our coins from the ritual on the first night. 

The hike down went surprisingly quickly, less than half the time to hike up.  Upon arriving back at the village we all changed out of our wet, muddy hiking gear, and showered (Bucket shower with frigid water), and put on the relatively clean clothes we had left.  The plan was to travel by Jeepney to another village for the final lantern turnover ceremony, but shortly after changing we were informed that there would actually be another hike to get to the next village.  Initially, the next village was supposed to be an hour jeepney ride, and a half hour hike.  We waited at camp from about 3pm-5pm for stragglers to arrive back from the hike.  However, as it began to get later and later we decided it would be best to go on ahead and provide for other transportation for the last of the hikers.

The hour Jeepney ride turned out to be quite a bit longer than we initially planned.  The Jeep broke down at one point, we ran into heavy traffic, and stopped for gas.  Additionally, it started pouring rain, so much so that the Jeepney driver informed us that he would not be able to deliver us to the trailhead.  This meant an additional 3 hour hike to reach our destination, which certainly wasn’t going to happen.  After stopping again to haggle and discuss, we managed to coerce the driver to at least make an attempt to drive down the dirt road and deliver us to the trailhead.  Fortunately he was able to get us most of the way there, and we disembarked around 8pm. 

From here we all put our packs back on, and headed off into the darkness with our headlamps.  Immediately after starting the hike it resumed pouring rain, and boy did we get a small taste of what life is like without electricity.  The trail was quite muddy and steep in places, and we were hiking in pitch darkness, led only by a couple of locals with the pretense that we would eventually arrive at a village.  There were two river crossings, requiring us to jump from boulder to boulder to reach the other side.  I attempted to keep up with Janet, one of the members of the first all women team to ever traverse Mt. Everest, and we soon became separated from the rest of the group.  This left 3 of us - me, Janet, and one of the guides, hiking with just my headlamp.  Around 9pm, we finally we saw a solar light in the distance, and soon arrived at the village. 

We were all soaking wet and pretty worn out, but could not have received a warmer welcome.  Several families from the village were still up, and had hot chocolate and a whole table full of food waiting for us, none of which contained Tuna.  We observed another chicken sacrifice ritual, turned over the solar lanterns, and feasted to our heart’s content. 

At this village we also met an old woman that weaves straw bags to sell at the local market.  We learned that she is unable to weave during most days, since the heat makes the straw brittle.  Therefore, she only weaves at night, but has limited light options.  She can run their generator (very expensive), use a kerosene lamp (dirty, smelly, dangerous), or use a solar lantern!  An older gentlemen, upon first seeing the solar lantern, immediately proclaimed in Visayas dialect that it would be an excellent tool for hunting frogs.  It’s wonderful to hear these stories, and to find additional applications of our lanterns that never crossed our minds.

After dinner we all slept on the floor of their activity center, slumber party style.  The following morning we again awoke early, and began hiking out before sunrise.  The hike out, along the same trail that had been so miserable the night before, turned out to be gorgeous.  The skies had cleared, and as the sun rose we lazily hiked out through open meadows full of flowers and dotted with fruit trees, with the peaks of the Mt. Kitanglad range in the background.