Mount Guiting-Guiting Dayhike – Our best yet for the year 2017!!!

The group decided to climb Mount Guiting-Guiting last April 29, 2017. Previous attempts last year (and the years before) failed to push due to schedule conflicts and logistical issues. What started as a promising team of 15 members dwindled to a more manageable 6 member team. The team comprised of Ronald Declarador, Rhian Ilagan, Jan Mark Abraham, Mark Sales, Diantha Evaristo and yours truly Jimmar Lagazo.

Our contact Kuya Remy (Mobile No. 09066356901) has stressed many times during our calls that the team members MUST be physically fit and well-trained in preparation for this very difficult dayhike. Not many groups attempt a dayhike in Mount Guiting-Guiting. The normal trek would take 3 days. Some would do it in 2 days. Very few would do it in a day.

Words will not describe the dayhike that we did. To have an overview you can view the Mount Guiting-Guiting Dayhike ITINERARY here.

What I can share is how important it is to be focused when doing a Mount Guiting-Guiting dayhike. The climb from Olango River to the summit will drain your energy so hydrate and eat well. Your pack should contain more food and water than your normal trek to other mountains. When you reach the rocky parts of the trail before the summit and after the summit, YOU MUST STAY FOCUSED and bear in mind that one slip, just one slip would be disastrous. A severe wound from the sharp-edged rocks or a slip that would hurt you will gravely impact the dayhike. GO SLOW AND SURE is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. The trail is very very technical.

Your gear and yourself MUST BE IN GREAT CONDITION. The long hike going up and down Mount Guiting-Guiting will test your mettle (16 to 18 hours of hiking is not easy). We passed by many groups during our ascent and descent. Their faces were that of someone already giving up. Mind you that these groups did a 3 or 2-day hike and they were surprised that our team of day-hikers were overtaking them. Going down we saw some groups with members suffering from knee pain while others could no longer muster strength due to exhaustion. Another group did not manage their water supply well so we saw their guides scrambling to provide water for them. Lucky for them the water source in Bulod was not completely dried up else they would have suffered dehydration.

I hope you already have an idea on how hard a Mount Guiting-Guiting dayhike is. So please prepare well and hard if you are planning to do this in the future.

Below are some photos from our dayhike. The cameras did not capture the difficult experiences but the smiles on our faces will show just how happy we were with the accomplishment.

Cheers!

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