A grave day on the trail

Something a little different for the Wednesday Walkers yesterday. Took a Jeepney out to the Kalaklan area of Olongapo, then climbed some stairs, well, lots of stairs, and wound up leaving the land of the living. Heh, all in a day’s hike. Let’s get to the photos:

It was not a really long trail, with only one big climb up to the ridge. But I hadn’t been in such a dead zone since 2018.
Riding the Jeepney. Not very comfortable and I don’t even let myself think (much) about how unsafe it is…
Let the climb to Kalaklan ridge begin…
Taking it one stairstep at a time…
On and on it goes…
People do live up here and making this climb is just another part of what appears to be a hard life.
Have a cookie and hang in there, kid.
It wasn’t the stairway to heaven.
But it did lead us to the graveyard.
The view is so nice people are dying to get in here.
I see dead people.
Leaving the graveyard behind us at last…
Shyrel was pooped out after the climb…
On the ridgeline road.
Looking back down on Olongapo City.
Keep on truckin’!
Troy waiting for the slowpokes to catch up…
Here comes one now. Sorry for the trashy environment. I guess when you are poor disposing of your garbage properly isn’t as high a priority as feeding your kids. I don’t like the litter, but I try not to judge.
Crossing the creek. This is where the locals bathe and do laundry.
That’s more like it.
Time to head back down.
The crossover.
Friendly locals.
Almost down.
Back on the flat ground of Barretto.
And safely ensconced in Dynamite Dick’s.

I couldn’t stay long at Dick’s because I had a dart league match to attend.

My teammates Kevin and Mark. Collectively, we beat our opponent from Adam’s bar 11-2. I’d deem that a successful afternoon of darts.

After the match at our home bar, Lagoon, I stayed on in Baloy for a while. A couple of beers at Johan’s and dinner at Da’ Kudos. I went home early feeling no pain. I guess that’s gonna be the way of Wednesdays for the foreseeable future.

One of the Angeles Hashers posted a graphic from his fitness app showing that he has averaged over 5K daily for the past year. He said he doubted anyone could top that. I said hold my beer:

I’m up over 11K on average per day. I’m not bragging though, that is well short of my daily goal. I actually measure my walks in steps, with a target of 20K a day. I’m averaging just shy of 17,000 for the past year.

Still, maybe I need to get a life. Or a girlfriend.

A “real” girl if you please.

3 thoughts on “A grave day on the trail

  1. Interesting. An acropolis that’s also a necropolis.

    With a yearly total of close to 6.2 million steps, you’ve walked from Incheon to Busan along the Four Rivers path about six times. Good job. And the year’s not over yet!

  2. Those steps do add up. Of course, spreading 15,000+ over the course of an entire day is much different than the intensity of a non-stop marathon like you do.

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