Welcome.
This site began as a simple outdoor blog in 2007.
At the time, I was an orthopedic surgeon spending much of my free time hiking mountains, exploring caves, chasing waterfalls, and documenting places across Mindanao and the Philippines. What started as trip reports slowly became something else.
Over the years, the landscapes remained familiar, but the questions changed.
The mountains became less about summits and more about perspective.
Photography became less about documentation and more about attention.
Movement became less about adventure and more about recovery, embodiment, and presence.
What you will find here is not a travel guide or destination catalog. It is a long-form archive of field notes, essays, photographs, and reflections written across nearly two decades.
If you’re new to Trail & Frame, these essays offer a good starting point:
Reflection & Reintegration
- The Waterfalls Are Calling Me Back: Eighteen Years After I Bled on Penek Busay
- The Mindful Trek: Lessons from Mount Capistrano That Go Beyond the Trail
- Photography for Wellness: Mindful Frames That Heal
Movement & Wilderness
Essays exploring mountains, trails, rivers, fatigue, resilience, and the lessons hidden within physical effort.
Photography & Attention
Essays about seeing, noticing, and using photography as a practice of awareness rather than documentation alone.
Archive
The archive spans from 2007 to the present and documents a gradual evolution from outdoor enthusiast and mountaineer to reflective physician-writer.
You may enter anywhere.
The trails eventually connect.