Mt. Daraitan: with side trip to Tinipak Cave and Tinipak River

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.

Picture at station 1

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.

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.

Mt. Daraitan rockies

FNF Team

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.”

This is what they called “human trafficking”

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…..