Date: March 20, 2016
Activity: Mt. Daraitan Hike / Exploring Tinipak Cave and Tinipak River
Location: Brgy. Daraitan, Tanay, Rizal
Highest Elevation: 739+ MASL (info from pinoymountaineer.com)
Difficulty: 4/9 (based from pinoymountaineer.com)
It’s been a while since my team had a
group hike and I think the last hike we did was last August 2015 when we climb
Mt. Maculot which I didn’t find time to document and post blog for that. It’s almost 7
months now and everyone is having itchy foot to go out. To relieve the
itchiness, as usual, with only a short notice, we planned to climb this
mountain on a day hike only. Lots of members shown their interest but only 3
made it to the meet-up point due to different conflicts.
I and Marione met at C5 and we met Elijah in Guadalupe. We headed up
to EDSA Central for a jeep heading Tanay. But prior to that, we took our early
breakfast first at Chowking EDSA Central. Around 6am when we arrived at Tanay proper.
Lots of trikes are available for a ride up to Daraitan for P500 per 5
passengers, but since we are only 3, we’ve haggled it for P450 and then we go.
At first it was approximately a 20kms ascending cemented road until it became
bumpy. Approximately 11kms of unpaved and rocky road and I told to
myself, “I missed my dual sport bike on this kind of road condition”.
Ascend to Summit:
Upon arrival at Daraitan Barangay Hall, which is the drop-off
point, we registered with a fee of P20 and the registration personnel assigned
us a guide which is a required policy with guide fee of P500 for a dayhike.
Then we headed up to the basketball court for orientation which is required as
well. After the 10 minutes orientation, we bought our pack lunch on the nearby
store then begin trekking.
We chose to use the short trail which
according to our guide is the more challenging trail than the long trail. And
yes he is correct. It’s only around 2km in distance compare to the 5km of long
trail but this trail is a steep ascend from starting point to
summit.
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| Picture at station 1 |
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| Mini-cave at station 1 |
After few minutes of rest, resume
trekking again.
And after 1.5 hours, we reached station
2. Just had a quick water break and resume trek again.
30 mins of ascend coming from station 2
and we reached Camp Site 2. Again, we just had a couple of minutes break and
we resume ascending heading summit.
At the Summit:
Two
and a-half hours trekking from the jump-off point and we reached the summit
of Mt. Daraitan.
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| Picture taking at the summit |
And for me, the most difficult part on
this trip is the waiting game at the rockies. There are more than a hundred of
climbers during that time and it took us more than 2 hours to wait for our turn
to have our pictures taken at the rockies. This is the thing I hate
climbing during week-end. Lots of week-end warriors are flocking on different
mountains nearby Metro Manila. I almost gave-up to wait for our turn but we are
all first time climbers of Mt. Daraitan so we took the chance.
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| Mt. Daraitan rockies |
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| FNF Team |
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Twin heart river as seen from the rockies of Mt. Daraitan
|
The Descend:
On our descend we planned to proceed to
Tinipak Cave. During the waiting game at the rockies, we’ve heard from the
other guides that the line going inside the cave is very long during week-end,
so the team agreed to delay our lunch until we secured our slot at the cave and
even planned to run down the hill to cut our time.
But to our surprise, descending is even
slower than our ascending pace via the difficult terrain. Heavy traffic from the summit up
to Tinipak River. And the lane is a single path lane that there is no
way for you to overtake if ever you want to run. Some of them even joking that
“traffic is not only in EDSA, there is even in Daraitan.”
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| This is what they called “human trafficking” |
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| Natural water source |
One and a half hour after, and we reached
the campsite
near the river. Everyone is already starving and unable to push through
towards the cave, so we’ve decided to take our lunch at this campsite. We’ve
rented a table for us to have a more comfortable space to eat our pack lunch.
Cave and River Adventure:
After approximately
45mins of late lunch break, we continue moving heading Tinipak Cave. And as
expected, we experienced the “human trafficking” again and the long
queue and waiting.
They are only allowing 3 groups to enter
the cave at the same time, then the groups in queue needs to wait for the first
3 to get out before they can enter. And after 1.5 hours of waiting, it’s our
turn at last. We just had a quick dip in the cold water of the mini-underground
river, around 15mins stay only to give way to others that are still
patiently waiting outside.
Then we just satisfied ourselves and
enjoyed swimming in the fresh cold water outside the cave which is in Tinipak
River.
After the sun sets, we fixed
ourselves, headback to the jump off, had our dinner and travel back to Manila
via public transport. Our guide told us that during peak season, public
transportation are available even late night as long as there are passengers
that can fill up the jeep.
We arrived home safe around 12MN.
Our
Itinerary:
03:30H – Meet-up at Guadalupe.
04:00H – Breakfast at EDSA Shaw.
04:30H – Depart Crossing via
public jeep heading Tanay.
06:00H – Arrived in Tanay. Rent
tricycle heading Daraitan.
07:00H – Arrived in Daraitan
Brgy. Hall. Register, bought pack lunch and take orientation.
07:45H – Start trek via short
trail.
10:15H – Arrived in summit.
Picture taking in rockies.
12:30H – Start descend heading
Tinipak Cave.
14:00H – Arrived in Tinipak Camp
Site. Rest and took our late lunch.
14:45H - Resume trek heading
Tinipak Cave.
15:15H – Arrive at Tinipak Cave.
Wait for the long queue.
16:30H – Our turn to enter the
cave. Stay inside the cave for 15mins only then continue swimming in Tinipak
River.
18:30H – Trek back to jump-off.
Tidy-up and had our dinner at the jump-off.
20:00H – Depart Daraitan heading
back Manila via public jeep.
23:00H – Arrive EDSA Shaw.
00:00H - Arrive home safe.
Expenses:
Bus fare from Guadalupe to EDSA
Shaw: P10
Breakfast: P99
Jeep fare from EDSA Shaw to
Tanay: P58
Trike fare from Tanay to
Daraitan: P450/3 = P150
Registration fee at Brgy. Hall:
P20
Guide fee: P500/3 = P166.67
Pack lunch: P100
Merienda: P38
Table rental at Tinipak: P20
Cave entrance: P25
Flashlight rental: P15
Trike fare to Brgy. Hall: P30
Bathroom rental for tidy-up: P20
Dinner: P25
Jeep fare from Daraitan to Tanay:
P100
Jeep fare from Tanay to EDSA
Shaw: P58
Bus fare from EDSA shaw to Guadalupe:
P10
Total Expenses per Person: P944.67
How do we get there:
Bus ride from Guadalupe to EDSA
Shaw
Jeep ride from EDSA Shaw to Tanay
proper
Rent a trike from Tanay to
Daraitan
Contact:
Willy (Head Guide): +639069533470
That’s all for now, thank for viewing and until next time…..
