Guiting-guiting Exploration - One of the last great problems

Ever since Mt. Guiting-guiting's summit was first reached in 1982, the serrated ridge from which Guiting-guiting gets its name ("gunting-gunting") has fascinated mountaineers. The desire to cross this ridge from end to end has only grown stronger through the years, but only a couple of legitimate attempts has been recorded. A year after the summit was reached, Bubut Tan-Torres, Mon Ruiz and Fred Jamili hacked and climbed their way, but the expedition got cut short when water got scarce (their rappel down to Cantingas River and subsequent 2-day river trek in itself was already epic). Almost thirty years after, in 2012, a team led by Jong Narciso tried again. But because of days of bad weather, the only got to scale the gateway peak, which they named in honor of Manong Lee Tansiongco. Both attempts started along the traditional route going to the summit from Magdiwang. 

The serrated ridge in 2009

In 2010 I finally reached the summit of Guiting-guiting, after two failed attempts (due to bad weather). I saw the sawtooth clearly for the first time on our way down. I flirted with the fantasy that one day, I will be part of the team who will finally make this traverse happen.

the view that fired up my imagination

A plan was set in motion as early as 2013. In our attempt, we would be trying out a different approach. Bunny and a few others realized that even if we do get to cross the main sawtooth peaks, there was a huge uncertainty of how to exit the ridge, as the other end--a subsidiary peak 1,500-meters high--has not been climbed (peak at the top right of the photo above). Maybe by starting from that side (from Cajidiocan), there’s a better and safer chance of escaping, in case of an accident or really bad weather. 

Bunny got in touch with contacts from Cajidiocan.  Fortunately for us, these contacts--baranggay captains whom they worked with in another project--were also eyeing to open a route to the summit from their side of the mountain. Through their support, we secured a permit to explore two possible routes, one of which was through the legendary sawtooth ridge. Our confidence that we will succeed in this historic expedition was on a high, when the two initial explorations of Bunny and Ram-mon (also with Kenneth and Adrian “Patacs”) breached Peak 1500, which would become our advance base camp. April is the best time to do it; a week before Holy Week, so that people have shorter leaves to file. 

The stage is set. Now we need sit down and plan on making this happen.