It's a walk, not a hike.

Up and down Mount Pinatubo

By Bri Vos

April 13^th, 2015

4 am

We woke early and met our driver in front of the apartment building in the outskirts of metro Manila. We had heard it would be a long, dusty and hot hike so we had loaded our packs with all the clothes, food, shoes and water the guide company had recommended. As we cruised out of Manila, the traffic was already getting bad even at 4 am. By the time we got to the countryside the sun was coming in sideways.

We stopped at the orientation point before climbing into the open 4x4 jeep that would carry us to the trailhead. Orientation turned out to be nothing more that anyone over 40 having their blood pressure taken. The four of us, our driver and our guide climbed into our jeep and we were off.

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The majority of the hike took place along a road with a few deviations to cross creeks and clamber over rock/ash formations. The first thing our guide, Rico, told us was that it wasn’t so much a “hike” but a walk, and he was right. We drank less than a quarter of the water we brought along, gave most our trail snacks to Rico (who happily zipped them up into his fanny pack) and ended up being able to do most of the “hiking” in our bare feet.

Its a walk, Not a Hike

We took off across the desert-like, ash covered flats at 100km/hr. While the ash kicked up by the wind and the tires swirled around us, we cruised past kids on motorcycles, kids herding water buffalo, kids carrying water, one burned out van and a handful of Filipino army privates guarding the protected area. We opted for the “long hike” which meant our driver screeched to a halt 7 km from the crater at the centre of the volcano.

Ashes

Before Mount Pinatubo erupted in the 1990s, it was home to thousands of indigenous Aeta people who fled to the safety of it’s dense jungles from the Spanish. The Aeta lived thrived there for centuries until June 15, 1991 when the mountain violently erupted. Our guide, Rico, was 12 when Pinatubo erupted and he told us a lot about how life had changed for the Aeta in the past 24 years. His father thought it was the end of the world, he said, and in many ways it was: the landscape was completely transferred which led to learning a whole new way of living. An area that was known for its thick jungle, arable farmland and diversity of animal species turned into a moonscape overnight.

The layers of ash deposited on the land destroyed both the villages of the Aeta and their livelihood. The eruption was the second largest terrestrial eruption in the whole of the 20th century and its effects were felt across the world. In the middle of Typhoon Yunya, Pinatubo ejected 2.4 cubic miles of magma and a cloud of ash that brought totally darkness over an area of 25,000 sq kilometres. 847 people died, mostly due to a combination of volcanic eruption and typhoon causing layers of wet ash to collapse roofs. While tens of thousands of Aeta were evacuated in time, they were permanently displaced and the lack of healthcare, poor sanitation and crowding in relocation facilities led to spreading illnesses and rising death tolls. Many Aeta returned to Pinatubo once it was declared safe, but the home they returned to looked nothing like where they had lived just months before.

The Aeta who’ve chosen to remain living on this land spend the dry season eking out a living from tourist activity and flee back to surrounding villages during the rainy season when the slopes become too dangerous to stay. In many ways Pinatubo is and continues to be one of the most significant global environmental disasters of the past century but those hit hardest by its effects are, without question, Rico and his people.