Hiking Diary Mountain #5 and 6: Mount Manalmon, Mount Gola with Caving and River Crossing

Disclaimer: This has already been post on my other blog account.

This mountain is best recommended for beginners.

The date was Sept. 25, 2015 and it was holiday!
It was Friday and since we don't have office work for this day, we then decided to have an adventure.

Our destination was Mount Manalmon in San Miguel Bulacan.

Our meeting place was at Mc Donalds Cubao at 3 in the morning.

We were nine in the group.

We rode a bus going to Cabanatuan. It was a three hour ride. Fare as of this writing is 117 pesos one way.

We reached San Miguel Bulacan at 7 in the morning.

We then took a tricycle going to Biak na Bato or Barangay Madlum. One tricycle cost us 200 pesos good for 4 people.

We crossed a bridge and parallel to it is the monkey bar.

We took a tour guide and he is Kuya Dong.

At 7:30 after some briefing and negotiation, we were then ready for a mountain climb, trekking, river crossing, swimming and spelunking. But of course, before anything else, we had a group prayer first.

We passed through Madlum Cave before reaching the Madlum river.

Yes it was a bit scary crossing that river because we heard several stories about it.

Thank you God for we have crossed the river safely.

We reached the summit of Mount Manalmon after more than an hour. Mount Manalmon is 160 MASL.

Mount Manalmon is also accommodating overnight campers. It has a wide camp site.

The scenic view on top was breath taking. We can see the Madlum River and also some of the neighboring mountains of Sierra Madre.

We also hiked the mountain on its front, the Mount Gola.

Before reaching the jump off, we have to cross again the river.

We reached the top of Mount Gola for about an hour too. Just like Mount Manalmon. It is 160 MASL also.

We took our lunch at the summit.

Then when we went down, we swam on the river. Yey! It's swimming time.

After our swimming activity, we were back to the main jump off. We prepared ourselves for Spelunking.

We took the bridge again and climb for another mountain. For in this mountain that I don't know the name, is the main entrance for the Bayukbok cave.

It was our first time to enter a cave that was so hard to pass through.

After maybe two hours, we reached the other end and it was almost sunset. We entered the cave clean, we went out like a mud person. hahaha.

Some of our friends crossed the monkey bar. But I chose to wash up already. There's a bathroom and the water costs 10 pesos per 5 gallons.

At 7 in the evening, we were ready to go home.

We paid Kuya Dong 800 pesos. 600 pesos for the two mountains that we hiked and 200 pesos for the caving.

We then ate dinner at a nearby restaurant along the main road before going back to Manila.

Trully today's adventure was one of a kind and very much unforgettable for me. Specially the spelunking or caving. Buwis-buhay it was! But then it was really a must try. It was just like a step higher, out of the comfort zone. :)