The Angeles City Corona Hash outstation run has been successfully completed. By that I mean it appears everyone survived which is never a sure thing when Guenter is the Hare. His trail took over 5 hours to complete and involved several big mountain climbs. A few folks came back covered in dirt and with some scrapes and bruises from falling. I’m told one of the downhills was so steep that sliding on your ass was the only viable way to get down. Well, not for me, but most of the folks who did that trail seemed to enjoy the challenge.

I got drafted to help mark the “sane” trail. It was a 6K jaunt up the paved road to Tibag and back again. We did have a 1K section that was off-road, but nothing real challenging other than the first half being gently all uphill. We started marking at 11:30 and finished just before the scheduled 1:00 p.m. start time (the folks braving Guenter’s long trail had started at 10:00). We were basically camping out riverside in the middle of nowhere so it was surprising when our group was confronted by a couple of armed soldiers. They asked what we were doing (hiking) and if we had a permit from the barangay in Naugsol (no). I guess they decided we were not terrorists or otherwise a threat because they wished us well and continued on with their patrol.

The only interesting event I experienced on the short trail was stepping on this:

So, I’m walking along and I feel something sharp poking me in the foot, kind of like having a rock in your shoe, only pointed I shook my foot around some trying to dislodge whatever was stabbing me, to no avail. I had no choice but to remove my shoe.

I stepped on that wire in such a way that it fit perfectly into the tread of my shoe, almost as if it was designed for that purpose. The short pointed end went through the sole of my shoe and poked me in the foot. It wasn’t quite long enough to penetrate through the cushion inside the shoe (or pierce my skin) but made it impossibly uncomfortable to walk. Pulling that wire out was reminiscent of the dentist trying to yank my tooth, but I managed to free my shoe of this unwanted intruder. Call it fate or maybe Karma, but that wire had to be perfectly positioned in the dirt and I had to step on it in precisely the right way in order for it to have the impact it did. What are the odds?

Let’s get to the good stuff–pictures from the Subic Hash Facebook page from yesterday’s event.

I’m running late for today’s Subic Hash. I’ll be back tomorrow with more!