So, I made it out to Angeles City and back unscathed. We signed up for the anniversary event at Premier Hotel, the ACH3 On-Home, then followed the jeepneys full of Hashers out to the trailhead, a thirty-minute drive over some very dicey roads (my driver’s vehicle bottomed out once and almost got stuck in sandy soil). Getting out again in the dark wasn’t much better, but we made it.

On the way to the start, I kept telling my Hash companion Scott that the scenery looked oddly familiar. He kept insisting we’d never been there before, but there was a dream-like “I remember this” quality to the views throughout the trip. And then, when we pulled into the field where the Hash event would be held, I knew for sure I’d been there. It was almost two years ago with the Corona Hash group. Scott hadn’t attended that run, so we were both right. And as it turned out, we wound up doing the exact same trail that I had Hashed with the Corona H3. So much for seeing something new on this trip.

That said, it was a nice trail on a beautiful day. A tough steep up, but it wasn’t too long. Some meandering along the hilltops, sometimes with a precipitous drop on either side, then a not-too-difficult climb down (on the medium trail anyone, I understand the long trail required a rope for the descent–no thank you!), and then a walk back to Hash circle on a flat dirt road. Took us about two hours from start to finish.

As usual, let’s tell the story in pictures:

As Hash circles go, the AC version was pretty tame, if not lame. But everyone has their own style, and I can find plenty to criticize about how we do it in Subic, too. A long and expensive trip for a few hours of fun, but no regrets.

UPDATE: Well, I’ll be damned. Turns out that Corona Hash I mentioned was in March 2021. It’s a little scary that my memory of that trip was so vague. Ironically, that linked post was titled “Things can always be worse.” A couple of days later, I came down with the Corona, as did several other attendees. We all lived to tell about that, too.