I have watched Lord of the Ring, the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's famous fictional novel a lot of times since I was a kid. I was reminded of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee's journey from Shire to Mordor during our Mt. Pinatubo trek, the landscape looked very similar.
4x4 ride adventure
The first part of our adventure to this famous crater was a 30-minute 4x4 vehicle ride along the rocky tracks. Our driver told stories about the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo on the year 1991, from what he had seen, that day was catastrophic. I thought this was easiest part, but I was proven wrong. We even had to cross streams while in the ride, it was exciting yet I had to take grip on the bars of our vehicle.
trek along the lush trail
We continued our adventure by trekking along the trail, at first it was all stones, huge rocks, and streams. As we go on further, we saw some mountain tops. Little by little, our surroundings changed from gray to emerald. It was funny since the trail has those signages that tell you the time it will take to reach the crater. We saw a signage that says "25 mins to reach the crater (if you're old)" and "15 mins to reach the crater (if you're young)", I think from that signage to the crater it took us 30 mins! Believe me, we're all young, our driver/tour guide was laughing at us the whole time we were trying to beat that 15 mins trek to the crater.
a lake within a crater
As we reach the end of the trail, the emerald mountain tops changed to ashen colours. It was soooooooo amazing! The view was so beautiful that I have forgotten about the stories told by our driver. How can such a horrifying event give birth to this kind of beauty?
I had previous experiences of mountain hikes, from long trails to finally reaching the top of the mountain, and getting your reward of seeing a grand view. This one's different, the trek was not that hard but the reward I got was so grand.