camping at Chalet Hills Archives | Wandering Soul Scamper

(October 24-25 – Chalet Hills, Busay Cebu City)

After our Osmeña Peak to Kawasan Traverse, we can’t get enough of the mountains. Since our trekkers club outdoor activity is just once a month, few of my colleagues planned to have another one the soonest.

I suggested that they should try night trekking on our planned activity. Some asked questions about it mainly about safety. After few talks, we then agreed to have a night trek.

I gave them 2 itineraries, one is having the back door entry going to Chalet Hills that would only take around 30-45 minutes of trekking on a concrete paved road and the other one is a bit challenging that would take us 3 – 4 hours of trekking on the usual trail for mountain climbers going to Mount Babag.

Despite it’s their first time to do night trekking, they are up for the challenge and chose the latter. They want to experience how it would feel to have a night trek on a steep ascent going to Mount Babag. It will be my second night trek to Chalet Hills but this time with an added challenge as we will be passing through Mount Babag.

Everyone was excited for their first night trek. I’m a bit worried that the weather might not cooperate coz it would be a much harder trek if it would happen. I myself prefer night trekking as I don’t have high tolerance for a very hot and humid temperature. When night trekking, it seems you feel less tired due to the absence of thee scorching sun, but it somehow double the challenge with regards to trails.

Narrow and steep trails can be very risky and dangerous at night as you would have a very limited vision as you go along. One slip and you can pick yourself in the bottom of the cliff or on the bottom of the valley, at its worse and it could be fatal.

There were just 5 of us who confirmed. Meetup place is at Guadalupe Church at 4PM but as expected, we were an hour late as planned but we’re okay with it coz it means we get to start our trek late at around dusk – its a night trek after all. 🙂

We hailed a hired motorcycle (habal2x) going to Napo for 10 pesos per pax (20 pesos if you hailed it alone). We arrived at the jump off at 5:20 PM an started our trek immediately.

We had less 5-minute breaks on our trek which made us catch up with our itinerary. We meet some locals along the way and they seemed worried about us having our journey at night. We just smiled coz its our main purpose anyway.

We arrived at Manuels house at around 7PM and had our dinner and rest for few minutes. Sadly, they were not living in the place anymore. All that’s left is an abandoned house skeleton and few scraps of things but of course, the dogs are still there. 45 minutes after, we resumed our trek uphill. On the steep trail it was harder coz the soil was very loose and they had trimmed the bushes around to the point that we can’t hold anything but yourselves. One wrong step and we would find ourselves down below the steeply elevated terrain.

We crossed one by one and help each other with our lights to have a better vision of the
trail and we were very careful in every step that we took. Few minutes, we all crossed that part of the trail and went straight downhill towards the flower farm for another and last ascent.

The last ascent was the part that we felt like giving up. It was too tiresome that we had several breaks in between. Sweats were all over our body and we need to grasp our breath as the air was getting thinner under those thick vegetation. As we were about to reach the summit of Mount Babag, energy levels were back to normal as we can breath easily but the seats were still overflowing. Upon reaching the summit, we can now feel the cold breeze of the night under the bright moonlight and it was still few minutes past 8PM. Yay! we made it there at 8PM.

We decided not to stop at Mount Babag for city lights viewing as we need to hurry to Chalet Hills for us to get a camp site space. We then walked on a rough road going to Chalet Hills with all the jokes and discussions about anything under the sun. It was just simply an amazing experience!

Without us knowing it, we were at the foot of Chalet Hills at around 9:30PM. Hurray! we made it to the target time as planned. We hurriedly climbed uphill to check if there are space left at the hilltop but there is none. It was crowded already. We went back to the hill shoulder and find some place to camp. There are a lot of campers at that time, some had their birthday celebration and some were merely having fun.

We set up camp immediately and settled. We had socials inside my tent at around 10PM. We had wine and played card games like “The Resistance”, “Spot it”, “No thanks” and “7Ate9”. Eddu had the crown for “no thanks”, the girls had it with “spot it”, the boys for “7Ate9” and for the undefeated and defending champion for “The Resistance” – the power trio a.k.a “Spies Boys” as per Randy.

We had a very good night or shall I say excellent night and we had lights off at around 2AM. But Eddu and I, were not sleepy yet so we talked until 4AM. Hahaha, wake up call will be at 6AM, good luck to us. 5AM came and Randy woke up, I heard him walking back and forth and talking to Analyn, but I chose not to went out of the tent and lie down for a while until 6AM.

We prepared our breakfast at 6AM and had breakfast immediately after as it was getting hotter. We break camp at 8AM and had some fun moments under and over the trees like old times (childhood days). Had pictures and the usual funny talks and jokes.

We started to descent for Mountain view exit at 10AM. Arrived at Temple of Leah quarter to 11AM and was planning to take a look inside, but it was already had an entrance fee now. The group decided not go inside due to scorching heat of the sun and it seems there were a lot of visitors at that time. Maybe we will be back in the future days to come. We then proceed with our descent to the junction just below Mountain View all the way to the main road. We were fortunate enough as there was an empty jeepney going to J.Y. square just right when we arrived at the main road.

My second night trek and my companions’ first night trek was challenging but a fun-filled one. It was really great being around and spending adventures together with these amazing people. Till next time.

Here are few snapshots of the activity.

(While waiting for the others, Chill outside the church)