Mt. Osmena Peak - Dalaguete, Cebu

Mt. Osmena Peak - Dalaguete, Cebu

When I got a chance to visit the province and the city of Cebu in Central Visayas for the second time, I added some exciting adventure in my travel itinerary. This is to climb the Cebu's highest peak, The Osmena Peak or O-peak. More or less 3 hours bus ride from Cebu City South Terminal to the southern part of the province in Dalaguete where this mountain is situated.

Dalaguete is the vegetable capital of Cebu, it reminds me of the vegetation in Benguet last time we visited Mt. Pulag. The weather here is like in Baguio City, so don't be surprised why the locals are always wearing jackets even during day time.

From Cebu City, we took Ceres Bus bound to Dalaguete, just ask the conductor where you are headed, to drop you in the right location. In our case, we alighted at the town proper of Dalaguete the locals are celebrating a feast that time. We took Habal habal for P50/ head on our way to Mantalongon Barangay hall for registration. From there, jump off point is just a few meters away.

Habal Habal Ride

Jump-off point

Thirty minutes or more from the jump off point, we reached the fork in the waiting shed. We took the left side and continued our hike until we reached some villagers. We asked them who can guide us to the peak and down to the Badian Falls since we are planning to do traverse. We were guided by 2 kids for P600 but not in the entire trek. They accompanied us up to the next Barangay only where Badian falls is 2-3hrs hike ahead. 

The trail to view deck of O-Peak is fairly easy, it is just 30-45 minutes from the village where we started. But another 6 hours hike if you are planning to go to Badian Falls. In our case, we reached Badian Falls within 4 hours on a fast pace. Osmena Peak is a resemblance of Bohol's famous Chocolate Hills, but O-Peak has a pointed and rocky peak. The view deck gives you a 360 degrees view of the entire province. According to our guide, if weather permits and gives us clear skies, province of Negros is also visible from the peak. But we are not so lucky that time as the clouds started to build up and rain might pour anytime soon. So, our eyes feasted the scenic view at the peak, we took photos as many as we can and ate our bread before we commence for the long hike. This was my 5th mountain so far but still I get amazed on the beauty of Mother Nature.

Pointed peaks of Osmena

Panorama of O-Peak

Yrwin and the 2 guides

If I'm not mistaken, we started our long hike to Badian Falls past 11:00 am, since it took 6 hours to reach the falls, we hiked in a fast moving pace as we need to catch the last bus trip to Cebu City as well. We did ascend and descend in the whole trail; we passed by so many vegetable plants along the way like bell pepper, cabbage, onions and etc. We met also some locals transporting their goods in a large basket using their head. Imagine how long it will take before they reach the flat ground and how heavy that basket was. Also, imagine without them we don't have fresh veggies on our tables. 

Belle Pepper

Cabbage

Onions

We kept on walking and walking and walking until finally the rain fell down. For the first time since I've been into mountaineering rain caught us while on the trail. Nice experience isn't it? That is why you need to keep your raincoat with you all the time even during dry season. As they say, mountain has its own weather. Since then, we did our first stop to let the rain pass and also to take some rest for a while. This time we are little bit slower when we resumed to the trail as it was getting slippery due to rain and mud. We are more cautious and focus on our every step, slowly but surely. According to our guide we are not in the middle of the trek yet. It means we need to hike few more hours and overcome the rain just to hit our itinerary.

 Thick fog

Trekking on the rain

We then reached the next barangay (I forgot the name) and then our guide left us there and hiked on our own. Since the rain won't stop, some locals offered us to ride a habal habal to shorten the hike and lead us to the next jump off site. We paid P100/ head for that ride. We alight at the sari sari store and had our rest for the last time. According to the habal habal driver, Badian Falls is more or less than an hour ahead from this sari sari store. Gladly the rain stopped so we were back on a fast pace again. We need to spend some more time to take a dip in cool water before we headed back to the City. That's why we were in a hurry. We didn't have opportunity to take some photos after the habal habal ride, we were so tired and exhausted. Our target is to be at the Falls according to the plan so we kept on moving fast.

 Trail to Badian Falls

Trail to Badian Falls is very established, there are some houses too. When you get lost, you may ask some locals you will meet along. They are very approachable and they can understand Tagalog too, so no worries. After almost an hour, we started to hear rushing water ahead, so few meters after that, here we are at Badian falls, the greenish cold and fresh water.

We stayed at one of the cottages where the Falls is visible. We asked the caretaker not to charge us for our stay; instead we will buy foods for our very late lunch. We ordered 4 rice, 1 1.5 soft drinks and their own version of Pork Sinigang. Wohooo! bon appetit. It was a good reward to eat delicious food along the natural beauty of nature, truly relaxing. After our tummy was full, it's time to get a dip in. Swimming time!

Finally, we made it!

 Their own version of Sinigang

After we enjoyed the waterfalls, we waved goodbye to this place and proceeded to 30-45 minutes hike to the main road to catch the last bus to Cebu City. It was a great experience, tiring but worthy. So, next time you'll plan a vacation, try to add a little spice on it to make it an extraordinary vacation.

Anyway, if you followed the path of that waterfall, it will lead you to the open sea across the main road where we waited for the bus. From fresh water to salted water, amazing, isn't it?

What's on my 28L pack during this climb? (Observe proper bag anatomy for comfortability)

Clothing

2 pairs of Dry fit shirts

1 Trekking pants (Convertible into shorts)

1 Trekking short

2 pairs of underwear

1 Raincoat

1 Columbia Sandals (I used in the entire trek)

Towel

Arm band

Hat

Foods

2 liters of water (in hydration bladder)

Trail foods (Bars of cloud 9, Jelly ace and peanuts)

Bread

Personal Items and others

Medical Kit / Toiletries/ Bath soap/ Shampoo

Wet wipes/ Sanitizer/ Tissue papers

Head lamps/ Flashlights with extra battery

Digicam / Cellphone

Trash bags

Knife

Lighter

Extra money

ID's