Its a go. Tacurong Mountaineering and Adventure Club (TAMAC), together with close buddies from Digos and Bukidnon (Team Budigurong) will climb Mt. Kalatungan in Bukidnon come fourth week of July. That’s what came up from our first pre climb meet last night, in my house, and over a sumptous pork adobo dinner.
We’ve been longing another major climb for almost six months now, and this should serve as a “welcome back” climb of Sir Joy Guadalupe who just came home from abroad. This author and Chris Bautista will also be making this our ‘birthday climb”.TAMAC has been into some various minor climbs (Maughan, Penek Busay, Parker) lately but we though we need a major one. Onin Banzon (President-Digos Active Mountaineer) still has this standing invitation for a Mt. Apo climb. Since most of TAMAC newbies has yet to set foot in Bukidnon, we thought Kalatungan would be a very nice mountain to climb.
Challenging is an understatement actually. Mt. Kalatungan, Philippine’s sixth highest peak at 2,824 meters ASL, is a relatively difficult mountain climb in the Mt. Kalatungan Range and National Park. Even Carina Dayondon of the Philippines Everest Team says so. Onin Banzon, who guided a team of mountaineers from Manila on a Seven Summit Climb all over Mindanao, told us about their harrowing experience as they strayed off trail in Mt. Kalatungan and got lost for 48 hours living on wild shrubs. If Onin, a veteran mountain climber (who made Mt. Apo his routine exercise climb) got lost and survived, can we? I shrug off the question and concentrated on our climb preparation. That’s what we made sure after this meeting. We will be very careful and will prepare physically and mentally.
We’re also banking on our mountaineer super friends Mijan Pizzaro (TREX-Bukidnon PAMB), Joan Jatulan (Bukidnon) both natives of Bukidnon and accomplished climbers themselves to accompany us in making this climb a safe and fulfilling one! So, wait and read our adventures here!
(For those joining us on this climb, kindly contact me through email or comment here so we can finalize the number of participants. I’ll be posting updates about this climb soon)
Photo Credits: Sierra Mountaineers website
