Osmeña Peak: We meet again for the 3rd time (OsKaTrav 3)

(Oct. 17 – 18, 2015 : Osmeña Peak, Mantalungon, Dalaguete, Cebu )

Monthly NCR Trekkers activity was fast approaching and the scheduled mountain to climb is Mount Kandungaw in Maluray, Dalaguete. But due to circumstances, our Trekkers President and trekkers adviser cannot participate. I made a suggestion to Tats (Trekkers President) that we should change the venue since they can’t make it like in Mount Kapayas Climb and coastal cleanup. It saddens me that they can’t be with us, when in the first place they really wanted to climb Mount Kandungaw.

One of us suggested to have it in Osmeña Peak, as there are some members of the Trekkers Club who was yet to climb Osmeña Peak. We had to make their dreams come true; Mount Kandungaw can wait a little bit longer though.

Last October 17-18, we climbed Osmeña Peak. It was my 3rd time to visit the place but most of us were first timers. What was different this time , was that I will be the guide for the group. I was reluctant at first coz it was a year already since I last visited the place and I am not sure if I can really remember 100% of the trail going to Kawasan falls. But knowing that some of us had known the trails or at least had traversed for few times already, I had peace of mind after.

We were 17 originally, 1 backed out due to health issues and 2 had a short backout notice for some reasons. 8 were from NCR Trekkers Club and 6 guests – 4 of which are new.

Meetup time at the Gas Station was 8:00 AM to catch the 9:00 AM bus going directly to Mantalungon Market. I left early since I need to meet Mimin at I.T Park and pick up the 3 guests at USJR by 7:30 AM.

Upon arriving at the meeting place, most of the NCR members had not arrived yet. It’s still 8:00 AM so it was okay. The bus helper asked me if we we’re waiting for our companions and offered to reserved 15 seats for us. I then reserved the seats but I was a bit worried when it was already 8:30 AM and still some of us didn’t arrived.

But traffic in Cebu can be at its worst sometimes, so I asked the driver to just wait for few minutes and he was okay with it! Thanks Kuya driver for the consideration and my apologies to other passengers for few minutes delay.

We left at the gas station at 9:20 AM, only the 10 of us. The two couples will just catch up to us as they have some errands to attend to at the morning and the other one has yet to out from office by 11:00 AM. Kring of thewanderfulllife with her husband and Elijah and Adz.

We arrived at the Mantalungon Market 12:30NN. We had our lunch and buy some stuffs. The owner of the carenderia was very worried because as she said, the winds in the peak were very strong and our tents might not survive the night.

But that doesn’t hinder us from getting there. We started our trek going to the peak at around 2:00 PM. It was a fun-filled trek with the guests and trekker members full of “Hugot Lines”. I thought the guests will be alienated throughout the journey, but as what I had said to Emz, they will never be out of place with this group.

It was a rainy trek again with strong winds, sort of a deja vu on my 2nd trek to Osmeña peak that was a stormy one but this time its milder.

When we arrived at the campsite, we had a preselected location during our pre-climb meeting and we immediately checked if no one had occupied the place. Thank God, despite there were a lot of campers already in the campsite, no one dared to chose the location we were eyeing for. We hurriedly setup our camp but had some difficulties though as the winds we’re very strong indeed!

We had used all of our extra ropes and guy lines for our tents but it seemed it was not enough. It felt like, any moment some of our tents will be flown away. Some campers transferred to our location and wan’t to set up camp with us but the place is already reserved for the 2 couples who are yet to arrived. We asked the coming group to buy small ropes and or straws for additional support and they did. Our sincerest gratitude 🙂

Despite the strong winds, we we’re able to cook our dinner properly, have dinner and socialize with the group. Just another “kadramahan” yet very serious type of socials: 1st part – Self Intro and why you love adventure,
2nd part – tell me your love story – past, present. LoL

On the first part of the socials, M.A.L.A.S was coined when asked to say something about me. (Maldito, Alaskador, Louran, Apan, Seryuso). Third part of our socials was card games inside my tent. We played spot it, 7Ate9 and Resistance. Guess that was a lot of fun not to mention the boys were winning it all in the Resistance Game. We we’re the “ultimate spies boys – Eddu, Randy and Me” as per Randy. 🙂

The next day came and we had breakfast, break camp, picture taking on foggy mountain and started our trek to Kawasan Falls. It’s new for me since I was in the head group now with Randy, Eddu and Edeleen (Eddu’s bro), to guide the group. But it was fun and a new experience for me. We were actually ahead of our itinerary and
reached the chapel before Kawasan at 12Noon. We cooked our lunch there, ate lunch and have Buko and lansones. The meals were great. Thanks to our meal planner and the cook.

Have few breaks along the way and arrived at Kawasan Falls at 2:30PM. The bamboo foot bridge in the third level falls at Kawasan was damaged and if you’re not good at balancing, you might as well need assistance to cross the yet to be repaired foot bridge. The caretaker asked us for a 20 pesos fee for crossing that foot bridge but I haggled to lower it to 10 pesos coz there were 13 of us and we will be getting 2 cottages (Camia
didn’t traversed, she went home ahead of us for impt matters). He gave the 3 cottages just for 500 pesos (reg rate : 300/cottage) but collected only 400 for the 3 cottages and 120 for the crossing fee.. 🙂 Yay! Thanks Kuya for the big discount.:)

Instead of bursting into a not so good reaction about the crossing fee, I asked the caretaker what’s the Php20 for when the bridge we just had crossed was a damaged one and on my previous visits, no fees were collected? I found out that the payment is for repair since they don’t have funds for the repair, need new bamboos plus the labor cost to make the bridge and they don’t usually collect fees for crossing, only when the
foot bridge will be damaged by strong water current. Now I understand what those fees are for when some mountaineers rant about the fees collected in one of their visits. Lesson learned: “before you assume, try the crazy method called asking”.

We went down going to the highway at 4:45 PM, arrived at highway at 5:10 and rode
the bus going back to the city 45 minutes past six in the evening.