Manabu Peak -- Mapua Mountaineering Club's 2015 Intro Climb

August 23, 2015, It's a rainy day in Manila and nearby provinces like Batangas when we climb the Manabu Peak. Manabu Peak is part of Malarayat Mountain Range. With a height of 760 MASL and a difficulty of 2/9, this is a climb perfect for beginners.

We leave Manila.early morning. The weather in Manila was fine, but when we reached Batangas, the rain starts to pour. We still continue our climb even when we arrived at Lipa, the rain continues to pour.

SM Lipa Terminal

We reached the SM Lipa Terminal, from there we rode a jeep going to Sulok in Sto. Tomas, Batangas. At 6am, it's still raining at the Jump-off. 7am we start trek and still raining.

River Crossing

The original itinerary of Manabu climb is from jump off then going to "Tata Tino's Alamid Coffee Shop" then Summit then Grotto then Jump off. What we did is the other way around/ We go first to the Grotto then Summit then to Tata Tino then jump-off.

Grotto
This is where the trail goes challenging. but the place, according to some visitors, this is where Pilgrims go during Holy Week.

Here are some pictures.

This challenging trail is going to summit, along the way there are crosses symbolizes the "14 Station of the Cross". The 14th cross is at the summit (the huge one). Since it was raining, the trail is slippery making it more challenging.

As we reaach the summit, the trail gets steeper, plus slippery, and colder. 12pm we reached the summit. Unfortunately, there's no clearing due to bad weather.

Summit
If you see a big gross, that's the summit. Since its raining, we didn't see any view at the top. On that time the rain starts to pour, so we descent immediately.

Here are some pictures

Descent
Since the rain takes forever to stop, we descent immediately going to the campsite, we ate lunch then continue descent going to Tata Tino's Alamid Coffee Shop. Along the trail, the rain stops. At 2pm we reached the coffee shop.

Didn't see that one coming

After a coffee break, we continue our walk to descent. Then we reached the jump-off, wash ourselves them immediately went to terminal, arrived at the terminal at 7pm, We arrived at Manila at 11pm

The climb was challenging due to slippery trails and the weather itself. We set the climb when the weather is calm. It was unexpected that it will rain that hard. Overall, the climb was a success and definitely an unforgettable climb.