Five Years and Fifty Mountains

These are some of the mountains I've climbed within the last five years. Watching this slideshow, I couldn't help feeling nostalgic over the past! In a way, collecting memories is a bad idea. Because every time you look back at these moments, you'll miss those times and remember the excitement, fervor and spirit while you were still in those exploits-in-the-making. And you know that's all you can do now! MISS them. You wish that you could just go back to those days when you were so ecstatic the first time you saw the monolith in Pico de Loro. You'll want to go back to the day you felt like you were in Heaven when you saw the sea of clouds in Mt Pulag for the first time. But wish as you may, you can never turn back the hands of time. You don't find use for your camera anymore when you climb because you've taken a picture of the same vista from all possible angles. You don't feel that happy anymore when you traverse the river from Buruwisan to Sampaloc. All you do is look at those smiles of your companions hoping that those smiles can help you remember and relive the feeling but to no avail. All you can do is to tell yourself "Sigh! I used to have that grin!". Such is the bitterness of the past! And if what I'm feeling now is sweet sorrow, I can't imagine what Sir Edwin Gatia and the rest of those 80's mountaineers feel every time they see pictures of themselves on top of mountains in proud blue jeans!