Back home safe and sound. Well, as sound as I’m ever gonna be anyway. Now that I’m done with the Corona Hash weekend, it is time to gear up for today’s Subic Hash. So, let me do a quick down and dirty about yesterday’s happenings in Angeles.

We all gathered at the appointed time and place, the Premiere Hotel in AC. There were three Jeepneys parked in a lot and one nearby parked on the street. There was no one around from the Corona Hash to provide any guidance. At the appointed departure time of 1:30, a Hasher from La Union went over to the Jeepney on the street and the driver was heard to have said “this Jeep is for the easy trail”. So, the Hasher came back and relayed the information that anyone doing the short trail should board the street parked Jeepney and everyone else in the other three. About eight folks boarded the easy Jeep and five other people got in with me and my driver. I told my driver to follow the street-parked Jeepney to the trail. And so we waited. And waited.

As 2:00 p.m. neared I went over to the Jeepney and spoke with the driver. His English was very hard to understand, but I thought he said “waiting for 2 more”. That pissed me off, why should we wait on folks who couldn’t arrive on time? Still, nothing I could do about it, and not knowing where the “easy” was starting, we had to follow the Jeepney driver. When 2:00 passed I went over to a couple of Hashers sitting outside the sign-up venue. I asked if they could shed any light on the situation. They said we are Angeles City hashers and the Jeep is for Angeles Hashers, not the Corona Hash. Apparently what the driver had told the La Union Hasher was “this is for AC trail”, not easy trail. Well, fuck! I went and told the unhappy folks waiting in the Jeep that we were screwed. Now what? Went back to my car and discussed the situation with my riders. We had the GPS coordinates for the Corona Hash On-Home location, for all the good that did me with my non-existent tech skills. Well, not a problem for the Dutchman, Max (Nosy Bastard). I gave him my phone and in just a couple of minutes, we had a map to where we needed to go. I gave the paper with the coordinates on it to the other stranded Hashers and suggested they see if a cab could take them there. We pulled out and thirty minutes later arrived where we should have been 40 minutes earlier.

So we took off to do the short trail, which was incorporated into the long trail as was done on Saturday. There was steep, but not real long, climb to the top of the ridge. What made it more difficult for me was that the trail was covered in a powdery volcanic dust (Mount Pinatubo was only 11km away). Breathing that shit in got my lungs into full-on coughing mode. For the first time in a long time I needed to use the emergency inhaler that I carry for situations like this. A couple of squirts did seem to help, as did reaching the top relatively quickly.

After that, it was a nice hike along the ridgeline, then back down a not too steep path leading to the road that took us to the On-Home camp. Around 4.5K for the short trail Whatever temptation I may have felt to do the long trail was canceled by our late start. Probably a good thing because even the fastest of the Subic Hashers on the long trail arrived a good bit after we finished the short one, notwithstanding our late start.

And it the all’s well that end’s well category, those unfortunate Hashers we left behind in Angeles were able to contact the Corona Hash leader by phone. He sent a Jeepney to pick them up and they arrived in time to tackle the short trail as well.

The Hash circle on the other hand was another tiresome affair; longwinded, egotistical MC’s dragging things out much longer than necessary. My fear that this would happen is why I had my driver come a day early. By 6:30 I had had enough and bailed out early, forgoing the already paid for dinner portion of the Hash. There was one highlight, a camel toe contest, that I’ll cover in a subsequent post.

Here are some photos from yesterday’s adventure:

And that was the day. I’m told the circle continued after the meal and the proceedings finally finished around 10 p.m. So glad I planned ahead. And now it is time to do it again here with the Subic Hash.