Mt Lanaya Traverse: Minimalist Camping

my bivvy at Windows campsite

I have recently decided to take minimalist camping to a more intense level. My first taste of minimalist camping was my overnight trek at the Akiki-Ambangeg route in Mt Pulag in 2011. I slept in the cavity of a boulder by the banks of Eddet River. That time I didn’t make use of my stove and cookset. I survived the trek without the usual necessities of a camper.

But last weekend, I took minimalist camping to a higher level. This time, I was more self-reliant. I climbed alone (without a guide) and I took a different entry point and exit point from the ones I took last January. And this time, instead of taking refuge in a boulder, I had to make my very first bivvy. And, I’d love to think that the bivvy I made may have been the best four-point bivvy I’ve known. The destination: Mt Lanaya (Alegria, Cebu).

Remembering Buruwisan

It was a chilly August morning. It took me a bit of a while to realize that we were on a mountain. It is always chilly on the mountains. The music of the stream nearby reassured me we weren't in the city. As I peered through the tent vestibule, I saw my father perched upon a promontory, his chin on his knees, and staring probably at the water below or probably at the space between. He believes space is perceivable by the naked eye. He says we were born with it and we experience it every day so we take it for granted just like our own saliva, which we think is tasteless just because we taste it every day. Occasionally he would be frozen steady, gazing at the horizon obscured by foliage that shifted from purple to blue to dark green. I wondered what was on his mind at that moment. Was it mom again, or another subject for a book? He always has a subject to write. But he’s never finished any book. He would, at times, tell me bits and pieces of them though. He says those subjects are too profound to be contained in just a set of words. He treats those things as if they were sentient beings that deserve to be respected. He maintains that if you can’t perfectly put into words the ideas contained in a single event in the universe, better not verbalize it.