Conquering the Five Peaks

By Zed Avecilla
Marketing Manager of Lighthouse Marina Resort
President of the Philippine Marketing Association Zambales Chapter.

Photos by David Bayarong

It was like and cat a mouse game, typhoon Basyang left and we sprinted out from our cool and comfortable homes to climb Cinco Picos in Subic, Zambales.

Our climb was scheduled a week before typhoon Basyang hit the Northern Luzon. Our group of 10 climbers was cut down to half the morning after the wrath of this mischievous typhoon. Knowing that the worse is over, I was still determined to conquer the so called “five peaks”.

Armed with 4 liters of water, some easy-to-open meals (San Marino Tuna Paella), Chocolate Bars, Crackers, and Vienna Sausage and Filipino favorite Adobo for dinner, spam and corned beef for our meal, we set off.

We left lighthouse at 1pm and headed to Subic Town (20mins drive). We dropped by the town police station to register our expedition before meeting with Chieftain Jimmy. We left the base camp at exactly 2pm together with Tomy together with his dog “Jumbo’ who served as our guides, and two local porters named Alan and Joseph.

The trip was estimated to last for 6 hours.

I’ve done a few research for this trek and was already prepared for a gruesome climb to the peak. Just five minutes from base camp we already cross a couple of river. My socks was wet and thought to myself this is just the start.

“This is it” i said to myself, we are doing this. I turned on my ipod and off we went. Crossing the muddy and rocky terrain we passed by this water source. Later did we know that this would actually save our lives on our way back.

The terrain didn’t get any easier. We passed by several streams, some rocky cliffs, and a lot of muddy trail. Combine that with a 20 something kilogram bag is no joke. The bag got the best of me and half-way through trek i had my porter carry it.

We stopped several times to catch our breath and remove the mud from our shoes. Luckily for us it was an overcast day. I couldn’t imagine how hard the walk would be on a hot sunny day. As we reached the last leg of the climb towards the peak, we decided to take a “San Marino” break before we ascend to the peak.

The journey took us 4.5hours and still had a few Gatorade left in my camel back. We enjoyed what was left of Silangin Cove before darkness took over. We pitched our tents and prepared dinner.

I thought that the challenge was over for the day but it was not, we did not have a big cooking pot to cook rice, we had to cook 5 batches of rice with our tiny pot but it was a small challenge compared to what we had to endure during the days climb.

We all survived and had a decent dinner. The rain started to fall and it was lights out for us before 10pm.

We were all up by 6am the following day. We were all excited to see the breathtaking view of Silangin Cove. We were all captivated by the beauty of what was in front of us.

We were even thinking of descending to the cove and just ride a boat back to Subic Bay. But that idea was short-lived when one of our porters said that we might just end up climbing up again because the seas were rough and there weren’t any boats crazy enough to go out.

It was a lovely morning. We had the 4th and 5th peak of Cinco Picos on our left and on our right was the pointed peak of Mount Balingkilat. I prepared breakfast for the group. It went as planned, 2 cans of corned beef, 2 cans of spam, and rice. We were all done and ready to go by 9am. We took some group photos before heading back.

The sun was up and with only a liter of water per person, I said this is not good. All we can do was to save water as much as we can.

On the way down we met several local people along the way. This includes a family of six which even includes a toddler strapped on the dads back. We gave them our remaining bottle of tequila from last night and wish him the best in their hunting for wild boars. It was not food or water but I think they will need a few shots to get them warm at night.

The view was better on our way down rather than the view going us, maybe because of the lighter bags we had to carry on our way done. Other than that it was actually tougher than the climb. My knees and ankle was a bit sore and taking more damage from the downward force combined with the unstable terrain and scorching heat.

We stopped by the streams to cool ourselves every chance we get. Even Jumbo had to take a dip. Our water was about to run out, luckily for us, we passed by the water source we crossed the day before.

I never hesitated to actually drink my last water reserve and filled my water container with the water from the mountain. It was fresh, cold and I was just relived and assured that I had survive this journey and live to tell this story.

The group decided to take a dip in the last river that we crossed before we head back to base camp.

It actually took us longer on our way down rather than on our way up, it took us 5 hours to descend the mountain.

We drove back to the Lighthouse and treated ourselves with our all-time favorite Sinigang na Baboy. We can see Cinco Picos from the poolside as we eat our victory meal.

After conquering Cinco Picos, our next stop, Mount Balinkilat which is also located in Subic Zambales.