Black Dog, Rockstars and My Long-Haired Guy
“Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing
Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.”
When I heard Aaron singing this line from Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog as we were descending from the steep slopes of Mt. Banahaw (a famous Mystic Mountain in the Philippines), I thought to myself, “Wow! This guy really sings like a rockstar. A fan of Led Zeppelin myself, I hardly meet guys close to my age who are into the “Classic Rock” genre and rare moments like these really makes my adrenaline going.
That year was in February 2004 and our mountaineering group, HAKAMS (Hakbang Kalikasan Mountaineering Society) have spend our 6th year anniversary on the summit of Mount Banahaw. We traversed the mountain through this difficult trail known as “Guisguis Trail”. All of us in the group were low on food and exhausted, and though 6 years [...]
I’ve left my footsteps on the mountain
It was just a split second of falling light. It’s around 3 a.m. on the summit of Mt. Talamitam and we’re still outside our tents, staring at the darkness of the night. Stars did not elude us and we were blessed with an endless sea of small twinkling lights above us. This time, the city lights below us are far too low to outshine the stars that seemed to hover near us. As we lie down in the open air, you can almost feel that you’re part of that piece of universe. In the stillness of the night, we’re between the earth and the sky, floating among the clouds and witnessing the death of a star…and another…and another. We’ve witnessed quite a number of falling stars that night.
We wanted to climb two mountains so we decided that the best possible way to do it in just three days is to [...]
