mt. asog: the mountain of the rising sun

Mt. Asog / Mt. Iriga

Iriga City, Camarines Sur
1,140 MASL
Jump Off: Sitio Ilian, Brgy. San Nicolas
Trek time: 3 – 4 hrs.
Considered a Minor climb with a difficulty level of 4/9

This old volcano saw my entire childhood literally because our house is just located at the foot of Mt. Asog where I play, study and most of all do hard labor to earn money. My grandfathers’ land is located almost  midway to the summit and we usually go there every weekend to either plant or harvest corn and other vegetable plant such as okra, eggplant, tomatoes, carrots etc. Mt. Asog has a special place in me since this is where my parents get most of our product to sustain our needs. 

mt. bulusan|the first attempt

Mt. Bulusan: What’s the latest?

I’ve been meaning to write about Mt. Bulusan ever since I did my first ascent here way back December 2014 but most of my drafts were just a short write up about the preparations and other stuff but I got busy organizing events and doing office reports. I don’t know what happen but my schedules got really awry so I guess that’s my reason for not writing anything new plus I found a new inspiration to make my day more worthwhile.

Mt. Bulusan viewed from the campsite (this photo was taken on the second attempt to climb bulusan)

I decided to write about Mt. Bulusan because I’m missing the experience we had the last time we were there. Also, I wanted to write something about what’s the latest in Mt. Bulusan. Well, firstly I can’t organize a climb to this mountain right now though I’ve been missing it a lot because last February 22, 2016 Mt. Bulusan spewed a grayish steam and an ash column reaching 500 meters up up and away. The PHIVOLCS also detected a total of 12 volcanic earthquakes prior to the ash fall. So, no matter how you want to climb Bulusan it is forbidden, the mountain is close at the moment and we can’t do anything about. We’ll just have to wait a little I guess. That’s the latest.