Mt. Puting-Bato
The island of Samal has also some interesting spots. One of those is the highest mountain in the island which is Mt. Puting-Bato. There are a lot of reports which includes the wrong elevation of the mountain. But that was our theory about the wrong elevation. Lyngve and I had decided to climb and measure the mountain. The receptionist said it will take 2-3 hours to climb the mountain but we told her that there is an alternative way which takes 15-30 mins only, but she didn’t believe us.
How to get there:
From Bluewaters Resort, we took a habal-habal to reach the town of Penaplata (80 pesos/habal-habal), and then we took another habal-habal to Tayapoc where the mountain is located. First, the driver asked for 400 pesos but we ended up to 300 pesos including the waiting time.
The first part of the road was fine but when reaching the second half was a little bit rough. It was a bit slippery and some part of it is steep, in which Lyngve has to go down and wait for the driver to get him back. The trail was good. Even kids can do this. There were 2 trails. We decided to take the most visible one where we can see the entire Davao City 360 degrees. It would be too impossible for us to get lost, just follow the trail and for sure you’ll get to the summit. When we were almost to the summit, the gate was closed. It says “We are open every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and holiday”, we went there by Thursday, bad luck it is. We were looking for an alternative way. None, urgh! I tried to check into the wooden gate, gotcha! The wooden gate was not close. I had to remove a single wood and there you go, we’re in! We hurriedly went to the summit and took some photos. The view was awesome! It’s really beautiful. We measured the elevation; it’s 540 meters about sea level. Now we we’re right about the wrong information in the websites we checked. We stayed at the summit for 10 mins. Before we went down, we left 20 pesos for the entrance fee; at least we paid the fee. Then we went down using a different trail, which was more established. Wow, we didn’t notice it on the other side, but from this side, we can definitely see it is more established.
After an hour, we were back on the road with the habal-habal driver. Drove back to Penaplata then to the Bluewaters resort!
Here's the GPS track just in case you need it:
Puting Bato
EveryTrail - Find the best hikes in California and beyond If you have questions, feel free to ask me or email me at emilyngve@gmail.com Have fun!
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