Notebook

The Old Dogs of Adventure

A new year is always a great motivator to look back and plan ahead. I speak for myself when I say that it surely feels like a deadline by default, a wrap-up for everything that transpired in the previous months. All the successes and the setbacks, the missed flights, and the broken down buses on far-away mountain roads that’s all become part of the year that was. Personally, it’s been a busy year with a lot of changes and upheavals. I’m thankful of course, for all the opportunities, even though I feel like I’ve slowed down in spite of a full schedule. I guess, in a way, the sentiment stems from the realization that a digital change has finally caught up with adventure. I knew a long time ago that change was coming, but the shift happened so fast and too unexpected like a flash-flood on a sunny day. One moment we were just a couple of guys on a mountain side, laughing hard after tumbling a hundred meters down a slope and then, in an instant it seems, everything has completely changed.

Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend how the promise of adventure easily fades away after it’s done. Where have all the old dogs of adventure gone in the wake of the slick new kind of enthusiasm for the outdoors? I still see a few who’ve successfully made the transition from analog to digital, from balls out solo climbing in the off-season to the more organized excursions that I see today. But there are many I’ve paddled stormy seas and shared stormed-out tents with that I no longer see around. Many of them have retired to domestic life, and some have simply melted away into the multitude of gut-wrenching adventures that nobody ever hears about.

I don’t know where a dude that everybody called “Soldier” went, for example. I did Mount Halcon once with him and my brother. The weather turned wicked all of a sudden, a signal-two storm rolled in without warning and the trails were waist deep in water. We had leeches stuck to our legs so thick, you could hardly tell if we were wearing socks or not. We tried our best to push upward, but the mountain pushed back hard that day. Soldier got as far as the Aplaya campsite, we were somewhere a thousand feet below him, lost in a hunting trail that led across raging waterfalls and log-bridge crossings that was so sketchy we had to scoot across on our behinds. Blood soaked our shirts where the anti-coagulant of the leeches ensured the bleeding of the hundred little bites they left behind. It was quite an adventure, even though we failed to make the summit.

We also tried to climb a new trail up Mount Arayat but were thwarted by armed men who kept hounding us in the forest. We tried to lose them in a dusty gorge but our footholds gave way under our feet. We tumbled down a hundred meters down the mountain before I was able to grab the roots of a tree that was protruding from the cliff. I ducked my head just in time to avoid my climbing partner’s jungle bolo and his three-day pack that came rolling down ahead of him. When we took stock of the damage, my stove was shot and our film camera was broken beyond repair.

Once, my brother and I got separated in the thick jungle inside the crater of Mount Banahaw in Quezon. We had just rappelled down from “Ikatlong Dungaw” and since the ledge we landed on was too small for both of us, he decided to go ahead of me. It took us about two hours to find each other, scouring the jungle in the shadow of the crater walls of a sleeping volcano.

I also remember climbing the same mountain alone in the off-season. I arrived at the foot of the mountain late in the afternoon, thinking that it wasn’t a big deal since I knew the trail well enough. I started climbing immediately, expecting to meet climbers on the trail coming down from the summit. It started to dawn on me however, the higher I got, that I was actually all alone on the mountain. The sun was almost below the horizon when I got to the summit, leaving me with only a moment to catch my breath before I was enveloped by the thickest white-out I had ever experienced on that peak. It was a maddening soup of blinding white mist that blanketed everything. In just a few moments, I couldn’t even see my hand in front of me. I had to pitch my tent by touch. I didn’t bother cooking , I ate a cold sandwich and drank a cup of coffee before going to bed. My tent shook violently in the wind that whistled through my campsite all night like a wailing ghost. It was the craziest night I ever spent on a mountain. I couldn’t sleep because the tent kept slamming down onto my face and there was that little voice of doubt in my head that wouldn’t go away. It kept on murmuring in my ear to remind me that I was alone on a dark summit, seven thousand feet in the clouds.

Nana Sela of Mount Banahaw, Quezon.

I wish I had a digital camera back then. If I did, maybe I’d have a better time suffering from this sudden bout of nostalgia. Although, the bad thing about having better pictures is that it would only aid my impulse to jump right back into the fray of adventuring. But if I do, it will still be quiet little adventures with just a few people, or maybe even just myself. No big groups or noble causes to go with it, just a good old hike into the mountains. If I’m lucky there will be leeches involved, maybe a few storms, and cloud-covered peaks. I’m not sure yet what’s in store for 2012, even though I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what to do in the new year. In a way, I think it’s going to be better if it’s unknown and unplanned anyway. Like a present, hidden until you tear away the wrapper and discover the surprise inside that you knew was there all along. – Myles

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The Old Dogs of Adventure

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