"COME ON, MACH, YOU CAN DO IT!" They cheered, all nine of them, my friends and camp mates - my companions on this fun weekend climb. They were encouraging me to go on. I was sitting on a rather comfortable rock jutting conveniently beside the trail (a deus ex machina!), eyeing the summit from afar, silently cursing myself for being a wimp.

"We're almost there!" They shouted back again, their voices sounded shrill amidst the strong gusts of wind that teased, flapped and threatened to uproot me from my spot. I watched Jhyng, Kathy, Kat,

Nitch, Ton and the three guys whose names have now escaped me as they slowly but surely crawled up the aggressively uphill trail. I heard one of them ask if something's wrong with me. I flashed them an OK sign and a fake smile, which I was sure they didn't buy. I knew I was going to be labelled with a thousand different names, all because I was too coward to climb the summit. But what could I do? The peak looked daunting from where I was sitting. I'm afraid of heights. My nerves got the better of me. I was a hopeless case.

I remained seated on the same spot for as long as I can remember, barely moving, both hands firmly planted on the rock. I watched my friends grow smaller and smaller until they disappeared from my sight. In between questioning my confidence and doubting my sense of adventure, a fog rolled in and an unwanted rain shower rendered everything in a panoramic haze. Whether the heaven was playing along with my melodramatic reflection or it was simply raining on my parade, I couldn't really tell for sure. Regardless, the raindrops seemed to have washed away the insistent feeling of insecurity albeit momentarily. That, and the stubborn dust caked all over my arms and legs. The trail in Mt. Batulao is a thin tongue of powder and dust which twirls and spins in the slightest wind blow or foot stamp. 

Feeling displaced and embarrassed, I amused myself by playing Holden Caufield, a catcher in the rye. The setting couldn't be more perfect. There's a cliff and a precipice. But I was merely a sentinel silently watching trekkers go past my post, bearing witness to young men and women who almost backed out after seeing the intimidating way to the peak (I feel for you, people). None of them did though. Unlike me, they were gutsy enough to reach the top. I was willing to wait there till my friends had all come down but with every stranger passing by (some had bothered to ask what I was doing there), I finally came to a painful realization that made me crawl down: I was a namby-pamby who didn't have business there.

Thinking about it now, I don't really quite understand why I wimped out scaling the summit. It's not even difficult to begin with. At least when you ask the people who have gone to Batulao. Three of our companions were first-time hikers who breezed it. I kept thinking about the hapless girl who lost her life in the same mountain. Although the accident didn't exactly happen at the trail I was dreading, the mere thought that someone did actually fall scared the hell out of me.

That fear could have bottled up mid-way, when we passed by at some seriously narrow pathway with a vertigo-inducing view several feet below. One simple misstep and you could find yourself rolling down. I pathetically groped for every stronghold (mainly grass) I could grab on to, and walked sideways, like a crab. Clutching my chest while breathing heavily, I emerged at a safe intersection with a view that was excitingly uniform: oceanic fields of waving grass that cascaded down a deep ravine.

I glanced at my friends who were trailing behind me. They were sunstruck and chatty. Overhead, against the cerulean sky, an egret (or was it an eagle) soared gracefully, inviting me to drift into a pastoral trance. The failed assault will probably be the first thing that would come to mind when I'd think about Mt. Batulao, but I'd also remember it as a trek that was pleasant in a narcoleptic, summery kind of way.