Mount Pinatubo, 20 Years After the Blast

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 28 November 2012 | 17.35

Al Gerard de la Cruz

The caldera lake of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.

CAPAS, PHILIPPINES — Hell's mouth has become heavenly over the last 20 years.

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, it spewed out more than 5 cubic kilometers, or 1.2 cubic miles, of magma and sent an ash cloud 35 kilometers, or 22 miles, into the air. It was the second largest eruption of the 20th century, exceeded only by the 1912 eruption of Mount Novarupta in Alaska.

Today, more than 3,000 tourists a month climb the volcano, whether to swim in its gemlike caldera lake or simply enjoy its beauty.

The historic town of Capas, in Tarlac Province, around 100 kilometers from Manila, is Pinatubo's best-known gateway. (Pinatubo also is accessible from two other provinces, but the Zambales route takes 16 hours and the Pampanga trail does not reach the lakefront.)

"Pinatubo is part of our history. People should explore and experience the beauty," said Mailyn Dizon of the Capas Municipal Tourism office.

From the Santa Juliana section of Capas, tourists follow a 25-kilometer trail to the crater of the 1,486-meter, or 4,875-foot, high volcano. When tours began in 1999, a ride in a jeepney, the army-jeep-turned-minibus that is ubiquitous in the Philippines, was followed by a six-hour hike to the summit.

Now, four-wheel-drive vehicles can navigate about 16 kilometers of the terrain — reducing the effort to an hour-long ride and a two-hour hike, which can be arranged through travel agencies or directly with a local association of four-wheel-drive operators.

After hikers register at the tourism office's branch in Santa Juliana, their vehicle travels through a military checkpoint at the entrance to Crow Valley, formerly used by the U.S. Air Force as a target and bombing range. U.S. and Philippine soldiers still use the area periodically; when they do, tour vehicles are allowed to cross the valley only before 8 a.m. and after 5 p.m.

Crow Valley looks like a moonscape, its surface encrusted with lahar, a concrete-like sludge of pyroclastic deposits and water. The tracks of the tour vehicles' tires and the roaming cattle and carabaos, a local domesticated water buffalo, cross and recross each other on the parched bed of the O'Donnell River, which runs the length of the valley.

Along the way, travelers may catch sight of the San Marcos and Tambo lakes, both created by the volcano's eruption. During the rainy season, in July and August, the river and lakes can swell with little warning, so the tours are suspended.

"This trail is not permanent. Water always changes the course," said Jay-ar Rodriguez, the tour guide on this particular trip.

Water has quarried the thick lahar into lofty cliffs and small plateaus in many places. And the trail gets rougher the closer it gets to Pinatubo, so the tour driver eventually parked on the last piece of navigable flatland.

As hikers start toward the "Old Way," a gully that leads up to the crater, volcanic rocks called dacites and andesites dot the landscape. Mr. Rodriguez calls them "batong buhay," or "living rocks," because they seem to grow larger as the nine-kilometer trail approaches its destination. Actual living things are seldom seen; on this day, hikers see only a herd of goats.

At some points in the gully, the shallow streams that form the headwaters of the O'Donnell sometimes reduce the trail to a pair of footpaths, each barely a meter wide. Some rivulets of warm water are green with algae; others look like they carry animal droppings that are in fact chromite from the volcano.

Five kilometers along is a rudimentary rest stop, a thatch-roofed shed and outhouse that are the remnants of a Korean company's tourist effort called Skyway, destroyed by typhoons in 2009 and never repaired because of environmental and safety concerns.

Ahead, a wooden sign challenges hikers to complete the final distance in 20 minutes — or be labeled "senior citizens." Beyond the sign, the path turns into an ankle-deep, tadpole-filled brook flowing into a hardy forest. Strange plants thrive here, including a tree with poisonous fruit that looks like the atis, or sugar apples, sold in local markets.


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