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A Partial Discovery of Tanay Trails

Now these trails in San Andres, isn't just another common, flat trail tracks. With lots of vegetation (hectares of it actually and even owned by these young, athletic, nature lover, and future leaders of Tanay), fresh mountain-water freely flowing through the rivers, clouds and fogs overlaying the mountain tops, Tanay trails are really one great adventure awaiting to be discovered. It is more of a mid-ranged mountain trail run that have almost reached the minimum peak to be qualified as a SkyRun as Mt. Bangkaan towers to more or less 1,950 MASL (meters above sea level), just about 50 MASL shy from a SkyRun's required elevation.

Last May 6 (Sunday), I, together with some runners from the Metro-South, were privileged to try first-foot the trails that will meet the brave challengers as well as the new crossovers of road-to-trail runners for the upcoming Nature's Trail Discovery Run set to surprise and delight us on the 27th of May 2012.

Our test run covered just 8km of the 21km distance category, which traversed the mountains of Mt. Bangkaan and the "smaller lump" of nature-rich resources after crossing a river that is Mt. Anito (no, not the Inn, it's the Mountain). Mount Bangkaan was the real challenge for us, with an endless upHELL which spans only less than 1.8km that took us a lot of time and oxygen "refills". During our ascent, I remember the day when I was dreadfully and almost cryingly climbing the peak of Mt. Ugo during my Skyrun debut last February 18. The ascent towards the peak though was, again, PRICELESS as we saw how beautiful nature really is most specially when viewed from atop the mountain. After a good rest and feel of the fresh air and some photo-ops with other test-runners and bloggers, our descent came by for just only like a snap of a finger.

bamboo bridge
Reaching the village where we started off, we refilled our hydration and our belly with some amount of food before taking off towards Mt. Anito (now you know it's not the Inn) which surprised us with yet another nature's offering -- an underground cave (Sangab cave). Unfortunately, we weren't able to take a dip as the water was still muddy from the past rain or water fall from up the mountain.

On to the next route, a much pleasant nature's surprise met us with clean flowing small waterfalls. Ed (Escueta) found the path leading to it and off the two of us immediately went in and lead the pack to give our body a taste of water falling down to our body. The water was so cool, refreshing us from the heat and tiring climb that we did back at Mt. Bangkaan. We were all like kids playing around the pool of fresh mountain water and I was even shouting for joy as it was my first time to bathe on a waterfall.

A priceless 1st-time at the waterfalls
After the waterfall adventure, we proceeded to complete our 8km journey where we've trodden on both wild and domestic vegetations. There were still other surprises on the remaining 13k distance but, it has to remain as surprise until race day.

After taking our breakfast courtesy of the Organizer's (Alvin Balderama) loving Kin, we were brought to Tanay Adventure Camp for a peak and another dip at its Olympic-sized pool. There we had our lunch, a chit-chat where we got to know more about each other and know more about Coach Mherl Lumagbas' funny way of anecdoting her athletic pursuits and experiences. It was also a short sneak-peak of the venue and what fun-challenges will be offerred for the 2nd leg of this event.

Yup, this is just the 1st leg of the three (3) legs of Nature's Trail Discovery run, and each leg will have different routes and venues within Tanay, Rizal.

So, am I going to see you on the 1st leg on May 27? Say yes if you want to discover the trails of Tanay with me or just keep yourself envied with some of our photos below.

Start and Finish area
Early morning mist
and fogs
View from the top of Mt. Bangkaan
Runners crossing the river towards Mt. Anito
The first of two waterfalls at Mt. Anito
A parcel of barren land caused by Kaingin system (not forest fire)
"We will meet him again on the race" - Ed
Them, preventing forest fire...
More photos can be viewed from my Facebook album.

5 comments:

  1. It was nice meeting you and the rest of the runnner/bloggers at the test run... see yah on the race day!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Mhalot, so that's your name. Nauna kasi kayong umuwi sa amin so we weren't able to get to know more about you na. Yeap 'twas really nice meeting new faces. See you on the 27th. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Twas such a dismay not being able to come (on the test run). See u on the race day!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't worry Noel, just enjoy our photos muna then bawi ka na lang sa race day =)

    See you and Nette on the 27th :)

    ReplyDelete

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