Pinagbanderahan Peak

Finally after more than 30 minutes from Cueba Santa, with more challenging trail than the latter, we reached the Pinagbanderahan Peak. It's 2000 ft. above sea level, nestles on top of the zigzag road in Atimonan Quezon. The name " Pinagbanderahan "  literally means where the flag was hoisted. Two flags had been raised here ( Japanese and American ) before our Philippine flag reclaimed it in 1946.




The views here were amazing, at this point thu', I was reflecting the challenging trails we had just gone through to reach this peak (from the bottom a 1 hour hike, but if you're like us who stopped for photo ops more often than necessary, 1 hour was a lie:)), and that same difficult route we needed to go through again in a matter of minutes. haaay. .

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Remember, in the first phase of this trek I had introduced you to Alvin  our trekker guide. We kindah treated this trek as "follow the leader.




I followed and imitated how Alvin attacked the trail. .




the faces of sweating, uncertainties and wt#mom!!!haha.

My family followed and did as I said, haha.

ahh.. water breaks were rare treats in this side of the universe...

This was the semi-final water break cos in just a  jump we were about to reach the peak. To get up to the peak  thu', we needed to get down a little first.




Not as easy as sounded there thu'. .







Aside from Alvin, gravity ( to the ground we were stepping on, not the ground below out there) was the next best ally we had to survive this descending challenge. And yes those trees on the side were helpful too as they served as our handrails.




stairways to heaven




And I thought it was the last lap, but why was that it seemed like an infinite ascend?. .

Right on cue, as if the goddess of this mountain had heard my impatience, she did give us a teaser of what to come. .

I know, this shot is not enough to justify the ahhs and wows we had of this sight. but believe me, right up there it was a breathtaking view.




Until, we reached the real thing.  . the peak of Pinagbanderahan.

Worth the pains, don't you think so?




presenting _ the Avengers !!!

 Now the Avengers had to go back down the earth. .

And no, I didn't promise that getting down was a lot easier than getting up. Both were challenging to the highest peak.

We exited in the old road ( we entered the trail here ) which used to be the only way to enter the trail before.




I'm happy to report that out of the whole trek, we only had one casualty _ the half pair of husband slippers, haha.

-the end-