I've been planning to celebrate my birthday for the whole month of January, after all, I am celebrating mg 27 years of existence in this world!

My month-long birthday celebration consist of different activities that I personally love and has meaning to me and that those will be combined in one month. These are Hiking, Wakeboarding, get a tattoo from Whang-Od a Filipina tattoo artist from Philippines who is considered as the last mambabatok from the Butbut Kalinga people and the oldest tattoo artist in the Philippines, and Volunteer on one of the orphanage.





I celebrated my birthday last Saturday, January 2, and head to my first activity for the month and year:Hiking. The plan is to hike Mt. Pamitinan but my older sister insisted that its a difficult hike so she suggest going to Mt. Sipit Ulang, both located at Rizal. Though my first choice is Pamitinan, I agreed to her, after all, she's been to 6 different summit last year and my last hike was like years ago.

Together with her officemate, ate Love, we head to Rodriguez, Rizal. Me and my sister left Bulacan and arrive at Farmers, Cubao. We buy breakfast and lunch at Jollibee and secure a seat at FX terminal just beside the Jollibee. We arrive at Montalban, Rizal and take a tricycle to barangay Mascap and reach the drop point, did some registering, go to the bath room and ready for the trail at 6:30 am. Honestly, I prefer going early so we can start early in the morning so we can finish the trail before noon and goes home before sundown. So far, we've made the first plan.

Mt. Sipit Ulang is famous for its rock formation atop the summit that looks like "crab's claw". The word "Sipit Ulang" is literally "Crab's Claw".  Our guide, kuya pogs, told us that it just recently opened last July and already gained popularity from hikers. He also says that peak day is during Sunday. When we got to the drop point, there were one group who is already signing-up.





After this boulder we reach this cliff/edge trail that we need to climb and I am starting to feel the weight of my bag and the sun starting to shine brightly and I am catching my breath already.


My knees and my legs are all shaking up. Before that, I got my left ankle injured for consecutive twisting while walking. But my mind is set to finish the summit! Did I mention I am afraid of heights? Oh yes, I do! I don't know why I enjoy adventures like this but yes I am afraid of heights. But the view is just mesmerizing and breath taking so how can the fear of heights hinders me from seeing one?


Little did we know the real trail is coming up! There were rock trail along the way, honestly, I already forgot the detailed part where we started scrambling the rock formation all I know is that we are there already climbing to its peak. I am already tired the moment we reach the "super trail"as our guide calls it.

Finally, after a couple of scrambling and climbing, well most of the time I do sitting just to go from here to there. We reach the assault of summit, at last! Of course, we rest for a bit and prepare for the next minutes of non-stop picture taking, I guess.


The view from the top is breath taking! I love nature so much and nothing compares to the beauty of it! Though shaky and pulse raising high we manage to reach the summit at 10 am. The guide says we are fast at first but holds up on the rocky trail. Haha!

But my left ankle is still aching so bad every time I put weight on it so few photos taken atop the summit plus I am already chilling and shaking and can't go more heights anymore. :P
So that ends our way to summit. Going down, we take the easiest route, they called it banayad trail. It was easy, but be extra careful because of the moist so its slippery.

The following photos our some of my favorite from our trail. It shows most part of the paniki trail. It was beautiful! I hope you will fin the photos below amusing as much as we do.