I climbed Mount Baloy: TOUGHEST hike in the Philippines

i've cycled on this bike 1000 kilometers all the way from cebu city to reach the incredible mountain region of antique it's been a hell of a journey but it's only just getting started the region of antique is home to three of the toughest mountain hikes in the philippines they're known as the pane trilogy first up i'm going to be attempting the hardest one mount baloy the philippines has a difficulty rating system for its mountains from one to nine the three mountains in the trilogy are rated eight eight and nine the first mountain i'll be taking on is mount beloy which is rated nine and is known as the hardest hike in the philippines first i'll give you a quick recap of how i ended up here in antique all the way from dumaguete in negros over the course of two days i cycled more than 225 kilometers to make it for the last ferry from buckellord to iloilo i quickly fled the urban hustle of ilo city to make the two-day journey to the west coast of panay to arrive here in antigua [Music] so here i am tired and fatigued legs feeling like bricks but i'm ready to take on the pannai trilogy so let's go trekking [Music] this journey begins in the small mountain town of valderrama where we stayed one night before catching one of the craziest motorbike rides through a single track in the jungle to reach the small barangay town of san agustin we then stayed one night at san agustin getting all of our permits sorted and now we've headed out on our four-day expedition of mount baloy straight into the river trekking shoes are wet now we're on a beautiful single track mountains all around us it's gonna be fantastic and it's gonna be a challenge we've been on the trail for just 10 minutes we're already waist deep in water you know this one's going to be an adventure for the books i was told when you climb baloia you can expect two things first to be wet for 90 of the journey and two to be covered in leeches so far we've crossed the river up to the waste and now it's raining so i'm just looking out for the leeches now [Music] offered us some malai so it's time to try little local fish now we'll try a bit of oh it's pretty nice smoked river fish malai [Music] okay guys that's the last of the river crossings and this is benito one of the guides from valderrama who's helped a lot during this process of getting the permits and making sure that everything uh with this hike went ahead so cheers buddy we have one more river crossing to go and then we're heading up that mountain to begin the incline for the trip into the forest [Music] all right guys we've made it past camp one and we're on our way to camp two which will be our resting place for tonight and it's getting steep [Music] this is marmar our other local guide [Music] uh we're making the last few steps to camp to our resting place for the night how about i show you what it looks like from the air [Music] all right day one of hiking done logged about 850 meters of incline made it up through those rivers and then the incline through the forest and now we're here at camp two we bypass camp one got our nice setup we've got my red tent and the boys have their black top going on and we're gonna hang out here and head off early in the morning to make an assault on this all the way to the summit past camp three and to the summit which will be at least 1300 metres of incline and it gets a lot more dense thicker and wilder tomorrow good morning guys we're rising and shining early here at camp 2 on mount baloy because today is our summit assault pretty tough to get up this morning and put on all of the wet gear from yesterday but it's on a little bit cold warm coffee got us going this morning and we're going to be heading up and probably getting pretty wet soon into the jungle here on mount baloy all of the elders in san agustin said three things you're going to be wet the whole time you're going to be attacked by leeches and that some people cried on the ascent from camp two to camp three i'm going to see how today unfolds but so far all i am is wet no leeches and no tears and we're off day two mount paloy whoa [Music] plan is to reach camp three and then summit assault [Music] [Music] okay the bell has struck seven and my leech count is that 21. they weren't wrong the leeches are out here these bloodsuckers are attaching to my socks my hands my ankles luckily they're not the big ones that are difficult to get off you just kind of give a little pull on a flick but 21 in an hour is quite a big way to start when we're not even in the leech zone yet so it could be a long day of leeches so the elder said the tribal leaders say that this kind of crab is very nutritious in this mountain you need to eat eat this alive but i don't think [Music] this trail has been non-stop steep since the moment we walked up it doesn't look like it's stopping anytime soon onwards and upwards we go [Music] i really did not expect it to be this bad it's just gone 8 am and my leech count is 74. sometimes there's 10 or more on you very difficult to get off they're not really causing any pain or suffering but they're just bloody annoying it's going to be a long couple of days if it's this bad the whole way i've come to realize that this trail poses more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge don't get me wrong it's been pretty hard on the legs but it's the leeches the constant rain the stinging nettles the wind the thick overgrown trail it all starts to wear you down after a while i can see why many people turn back and quit it's not going to happen for us but i can see where the difficulties lie in this trail [Music] [Applause] it's almost 10 a.m and the leech count is 100 plus i've basically learned to co-exist with them at this point i've got about 20 attached to my shoe and my feet right now they're not really doing anything to harm me so maybe i'll just take him to the summit [Music] [Music] we are crushing it after four hours and 40 minutes we've made it to camp three got a little clearing here in the forest and we did 1200 meters of incline from camp 2 to camp 3 through some pretty wild terrain so it's slow going uh but we didn't stop too much because every time you stop you get infested with leeches so quick quick stuff down on the trail and uh we're gonna rest up here for a little bit have lunch and then make our summit assault to mount baloy all right guys we're heading up for our summer to salt off mount beloy i think about an hour and a half up this muddy track till we get to the summit of this damn mountain [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] look how incredible this enchanted forest is we're just minutes away from the summer just how beautiful it is up here if you don't like being wet 90 of the time if you don't like leeches if you don't like overgrown trails and if you don't like a lot of incline mount balloon is not for you but if you love all those things i'll see you at the summit because here we are mount baloy down and dusted so on day one we had 850 meters of incline and about eight kilometers in distance and on day two fifteen hundred and thirty meters of incline and ten kilometers in distance keep in mind the trail is very arduous very slow going so those distances uh may seem smaller than the challenge actually is we're going to take a coffee here at the summit there's no view to enjoy we're just completely immersed in this enchanted forest then we're going to head back down to camp three will take us about an hour and we're going to sleep there tonight amongst the leeches before heading back all the way to san agustin the barangay where we kicked off just yesterday so three day journey in the end cheers we've been completely immersed in a cloud for the last three or four hours but if i'm lucky enough on the way down to get a clearing i'll leave you guys with these drone shots [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Jackson Groves

Views: 53,302

Keywords: jackson groves, mount baloy, panay trilogy, hiking philippines, best hike philippines, trekking philippines, valderrama hike, antique hike, most difficult hike philippines, hardest hike philippines, mt.baloy, mt baloy, antique trilogy, mountain trekking philippines, philippines hikes, hiking in the philippines, philippines trekking, hard hike philippines, panay hiking, mount baloy antique, mount baloy panay

Id: bWJ93lR1NKU

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022