At one point I imagined that I was on Tough Mudder, stomping my way through the muddy swamp. That’s how it felt when we climbed the 2,922-meter tall Mt Pulag in Kabayan, Benguet. The supposedly easy Ambangeg trail, then coated with ankle-deep mud, turned treacherous because of the incessant rain. I saw several slip and slide and fall and rise, with their bare feet, shoes and pants getting dirtier and dirtier as we reach camp. Cold, weary and dripping wet, we trudged through the slush towards our campsite which was then blanketed in fog.
Near dawn we set out for the summit to watch the sun rise over a ‘sea of clouds.’ I was astonished when I learned that that sea of clouds was the only thing that my friends wanted to see. While I took delight in the agony and the ecstasy of each step, they couldn’t care less about--and looked as if they even hated--the climb itself.
And when I asked my friends if they felt that feeling of joy during the trek or that certain spurt of exhilaration, that sense of accomplishment one gets after a climb, their response astonished me more. We’d never do something like this again. This is our first and last climb. They vowed. How they felt was completely opposite to what I felt.
