My third Hash event in three days is in the books. Now, the Bundok Hash is a once a year thing here and it’s “special”. Well, special in a way that I am duty-bound to not discuss publicly. Suffice to say it is limited in attendance to 22 brave souls who are biologically male. I met those stringent conditions and had the money required (P3500/$70) to participate. And so I did.

Now, it was like other Hashes in the sense that it did involve a walk/run and beer drinking. The Hares advised that the long trail was around 8K and the short trail was 4K. There was also a beer stop set up 2K into the hike.

Okay, well. I opted to do the long hike. And as usual, the runners and faster walkers soon disappeared way out in front of me. The trail began in familiar territory going through my subdivision and down into the small village of Marian Hills. That’s where the beer truck was parked and waiting. Now, I didn’t see the wisdom in providing beer so early in the hike, but so be it. What was surprising was that just me and another slow walker, Cannonball, were at the truck. I asked the Hares where the runners were and was told that we were the first to arrive. That didn’t make sense at all.

I found out later that everyone in front of me had missed the trail in Alta Vista, and went off on a tangent of some sort. In fact, NO ONE else made it to the beer stop at all. The only explanation was that the trail markings were confusing. In one sense they were–the short trail was simply to the beer truck and back. And the Hare had arrows going in both directions. I had correctly surmised this is what was going on so I had continued on the proper path. So, suffice to say this was a pretty major boondoggle. A Hare should always avoid having the trail cross over itself to ensure this kind of confusion doesn’t happen. And having the beer stop at the beginning of a long hike is also stupid. I had one beer and then a decision to make.

I chose to continue on with the long hike but planned to short cut as needed. The arrows pointed up to a familiar path and eventually intersected with My Bitch, so I figured I’d been well within my comfort zone. Cannonball opted to come along with me. Now, Cannonball is built like, well, a cannonball. Big and round. He asked if it was a hard trail and I responded that there was one moderate uphill and then it should all flat or downhill back to Barretto. So off we went.

Well, Cannonball struggled mightily with the uphill. I had to help him up in a couple of spots (I usually come down this way, so the climbing was a bit more difficult than expected). It was slow going, but we eventually made it to the top without an accident. My plan at this point given the time was to shortcut down to Columban College and then walk the streets back to our on-home at Hot Zone. Alas, I somehow missed the proper downhill trail and found that we were taking the path that leads to Rizal Extension. Oh well, it just added thirty minutes or so to the hike. Food was served at 5:00 and we arrived at 5:15. They saved us some.

We were later recognized as being DFL (dead fucking last) and required to sit on the ice for that sin. I did note that we were the only two in attendance who had walked the actual trail, but of course, no one cared.

Another boondoggle was with something I can’t really discuss here. The Bundok euphemism is “software”. So, we’ll just say there was a software problem. The Grand Master had mentioned a week or so ago that he was short on software and I told him no problem, I’d bring my own. Well, I guess things resolved in the interim and he had plenty of software to go around, but I had already made arrangements for mine to be, um, delivered. When it was he got pissed and got in my face yelling some, but in the end, it worked out. My software performed well and the Grand Master apologized.

And I guess that enough about the Bundok. Oh, I did get this nifty shirt:

And then there was this warning label inside the shirt:

Maybe I’ve said too much already.

Peace out!