Huddled for warmth
he wind was pounding at our tent. First I could hear a sort of a howl then the wind would start coming. It was kind of hard to sleep as the pounding wind would wake you at the middle of your snooze. By 3am everyone was mostly awake. We had to prepare early for the 4am ascent to the peak. It was dark, wet and cold. My glasses were once again useless so I opted to remove them. Darkness has always been my weak point somehow, even with glasses, now that I have removed them I had to rely heavily as well on the lantern Eds was holding since his headlamp seems to have malfunctioned.
It was dark and misty, it felt like I was one of the hobbits crossing the planes of mordor in the dark, the wind pounding on your back and only the misty sight of the lantern in the front was guiding our way. Once, I made a wrong step on the trail and almost fell on the side, good thing I was able to hold on to the dwarf bamboos and just sat on the trail. Looking back among the mist, more than 20 paces away is a parade of headlamps and bodies eager to reach the top. In around 45 minutes, we were at the peak. At that present darkness, I wouldn't have recognized where we were, until I saw the familiar marker set up by the MMS (Metropolitan Mountaineering Society) at the peak. This time though we came from the back of the mountain. I shaked hand and congratulated the poeple who came one by one. Though we reached the peak, the rain and the wind was still strong, everyone soon huddled together at the back of the peak-marker to avoid the wind.
Warmth Behind Dwarf Bamboos
We were hoping the sky would clear soon, but at almost 6am, the surroundings may have lightened up but the clouds, the wind and the rain were still there. We repositioned ourselves among the dwarf bamboos to avoid the wind and minimize the cold. We couldn't wait till the clouds clear up so we prepared breakfast behind the dwarf bamboos. It was the last of our supplies, tocino, and some raisin bread loafs for breakfast. And I guess, for sometime, the cold had finally gotten in, I saw Eds' hands was shaking as he was holding the cooking Pan and found that my body was also shivering while I was cutting pieces of the Tocino Meat. While cooking, it was a good thing the sky cleared up, and the peak revealed itself to us for about 10 minutes. The guys were in a photo frenzy mood. I was able to take a few shots while cooking. After a few minutes we were really cold, good thing Jen, Mutts and the other took over the cooking chores while we warm ourselves behind the bamboo dwarves.
