Almost a Mountaineer

Our team in Mt Pulag summit - 2009

How do you get to be called a mountaineer? I believe it's more than its definition. How do you?

Do you need to look like Indiana Jones suited in that multi-pocket vest, a lightweight cargo pants and boots with sole like eagle’s claws? Is it about the backpack, 60 liters log-looking load? Or maybe those gears for a small version of a bedroom and a kitchen?

Would the number of meters ‘above sea level’ or how many summits conquered matter? Should you always take the longer trail? Is it a must to be part of a mountaineering group or climb for a cause or something? 

On a crazier note, maybe you just happen to strain all your muscles and breathe thinner air just so to make a Facebook pose upon reaching the peak then there goes your couch-potato friends, envy. 

If it only takes climbing a mountain to be a mountaineer, how about the mighty porters who carry your logs up to the camp site tramping the path as if strolling in the park? What do you call then the people at the base camp selling liquids and junkies, they run the route back and forth like they were playing chase?

As mountain climbing becoming an ‘it’ thing today, the self-proclaimed mountaineers are also propagating, fast. I really am no professional or in a position to determine who meets the criteria because in the first place it is not a commercial job with defined qualifications. I just think that we are losing the real deal.

Yes, I did put on those dri-fit costumes, bought a sturdy knapsack, a disposable poncho and a sleeping bag, and hiked. They were a few that I can count them with my hands but every experience was different from the other. I ascended using the steps in Mt Tapyas, trekked in a heavy rain while traversing Limasawa island, swam in the turquoise lake of Mt Pinatubo, fought with altitude sickness in Mt Bromo, crawled vertically to get to the top of Mt Maculot, and I also posed with the clouds upon my feet 9200ft up high Mt Pulag. Then again, I am no mountaineer, almost but not quite.