Mt. Ugo Day 2: Trekking to the Summit

This is the second portion of the series of posts related to Mt. Ugo. If you missed the first part, please click here. If you wish to see the last post of the series, please click here.

I woke up in the middle of the night shivering from the cold. It felt so hot when I slept that I even had to take my jacket off, but a few hours into my slumber, it was exactly the opposite. I put my jacket back on, yet it wasn’t sufficient to keep me warm. I suspected that the door was open, but I was too cold to get out from my sleeping bag to even check. I rubbed my hands together, tucked myself into fetal position, listened to the chorus of snores, and tried my best to sleep.

A few hours after, someone woke me up. It was time to get ready. We packed our stuff and had breakfast at an unholy hour. I badly wanted a cup of coffee and was even tempted to drink one, but the thought of rushing to the bathroom sometime within the day’s trek left me content with just drinking water.

Armed with our headlights, we proceeded with our walk into the darkness. Ahead of us was another steep climb according to our guide. And sure it was. We made our way slowly up (by then I had lost track of time), only stopping as needed.

Mt. Ugo Climb; Mt. Ugo Traverse; Mt. Ugo Trekking; Backpacking Philippines; — If all days could start just like this…

The sun rose before we even reached the summit, yet it was beautiful. I loved seeing the mountain ranges and sea of clouds basked in hues of blue, orange and yellow, as the night subtly turned into day. We took a long rest at this point, while Kuya Alex pointed several mountains waiting to be trekked in the Cordilleras.

In front of us was the false summit, or so I call it. It seemed to be the summit, as I couldn’t see anything beyond it anymore, and I was tired. I badly wanted it to be the summit. It was indeed a steep climb, one that causes your knees to shake when you look down at the point from where you started.

The view becomes nicer as you notice how the leaves change in color, as if mimicking autumn abroad. Soon, Jo informed me that we were entering a mossy forest.

As we moved closer to the voices of our companions, I initially thought that it was another period of rest. Little did I know that we were already very close to the summit. A few more steps and we were at the summit, with the signage proudly marking that we were standing at 2150 masl. Yay!