Mountain Climber

MANILA, Philippines - If someone lent you the keys to a gleaming white, 4x4 Montero Sport with all the bells and whistles like “Super Select 4-Wheel Drive”, INVECS-II Sports Mode, and more cupholders and pockets than you’d care to count, wouldn’t you want to see how high up it could go?

When I set out for this trip, typhoon Feria was blowing up a racket, Transformers: ROTF was being pummeled by critics, wifey was five weeks out from our first baby, and friends and family were imploring me to stay home.

Of course I had to go.

Under the circumstances, it seemed like a perfectly sensible idea to head north by my lonesome and go climb a mountain before jumping into the abyss that is called Fatherhood. What better vehicle to celebrate the last few days of freedom with than Mitsubishi’s dashing SUV? With space for seven, a gutsy CRDi powerplant, and all the comforts of a modern car for P1,860,000, it’s easy to dismiss the Montero Sport as another sell-out. In its bid to become as “car-like” as possible, the Montero brims with such features like a coil spring rear suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, and a manumatic transmission.

True enough, the truck is a hit with buyers; Mitsubishi is selling as many as it can bring in. The technical and sybaritic merits of the Montero Sport have been described in this newspaper for some time now, so this time we had just a few questions left to resolve: Would this softer, kinder, gentler truck still have the guts to go where soft-roaders fear to tread? That would be the test for this trip: the final 10 kilometers to the “Babadak” Ranger Station, roughly 2,485 meters above sea level. I had a 720-km round trip to cover, 20 of those off-road. To get to Pulag, you must first go up Baguio, then from there travel an additional fifty kilometers, past the Ambuklao Dam, and register at the DENR office at Ambangeg.

The DENR office is usually where most mountaineers leave their vehicles and hire a 4x4 jeepney for the final 10-kilometer ride. Or, because jeepney hires are expensive, they walk. This part is, how shall I put it, the most interesting part of the drive. The route is just wide enough for one vehicle, and you are strongly encouraged to stay in it. This is because, for most of the trail, on one side are very steep cliffs, and on the other side are very steep (and jagged) rock walls. The surface is composed of gravel and loose rocks, but around this time of the year there’s also a thick layer of sludge.

Between the scarcity of traction and the fact that 97% of the route is uphill, it is a very challenging route. You can forget about bringing a 4x2 vehicle there, or even any of the current generation of soft-roaders like the Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4. Even though they might be able to claw their way up the trail, hundreds of large rocks and boulders threaten to tear up the underside of a low-slung vehicle. What few vehicles that ply the route consist of ancient jeepneys running on Land Cruiser chassis, and some high-riding pickup trucks. My Montero Sport was completely stock and running on street tires. It did have some very capable tech to attack the trail with.

Its arsenal consisted of the “Super Select” 4-wheel drive with High and Low ranges and lockable center differential, a tough-as-nails ladder frame chassis (shared with the Strada pickup truck), a Limited Slip Differential, a 4-speed INVECS-II Sports Mode transmission, minimum ground clearance of 215 mm. and approach, departure, and break-over angles of 36-, 25-, and 23-degrees, respectively. Would it be enough to tackle a route that would be enough of a challenge for the average owner? And after that, assuming I was still good to go, how comfortable would I still be for the return leg?

On the “minus” side of the equation was, well, myself. Traveling by my lonesome, I lacked a companion who could jump out at times to check the ground clearance, much less check out what was around the next blind hairpin. One slip and I would have to be calling the good folks at Mitsubishi from the side of a cliff... assuming I was still conscious. Less fatalistically, I was also worried about tipping the truck onto a rock wall; a major blow to the ego as well as my wallet.

After an uneventful drive from Manila to Baguio, and on to Ambangeg, I started out in 4WD-High as the trail was still relatively smooth and undulating. After two kilometers, the trail became very loose and technical. I decided to take no chances and shifted into 4WD-Low with the center differential locked, sticking to 1st and 2nd gears only. It was probably overkill, but between threading my way around the curves, keeping the tires on the trail, and repeatedly pulling back my testicles from my throat, I really didn’t want to worry about not having enough traction.

As it was, I had to pay attention to every inch of road the tires were rolling over, careful not to slash a sidewall. Some sections were so slippery I was actually going up in a diagonal fashion, feeding opposite lock to the tires.

With two kilometers to go, a dreadful “beep-beep-beep” began emanating from the Tire Pressure Monitoring System. Stepping out the Montero and into the mist (visibility was down to a hundred feet too), I checked the tires but couldn’t find anything wrong. The TPMS registered a soft right-rear tire, 3 PSI lower than the left. Deciding that now was not the time to change a tire, I soldiered on to the Ranger station unscathed. My phone’s GPS system said I’d climbed nearly 1,500 meters in 10 kilometers, or 150 meters of elevation gain for every stressful kilometer.

And after that? The hike itself the morning after, largely uneventful except for the freezer-like temperature, rain and winds that felt like the hand of God asking me if I really wanted to climb the damn mountain, and an eerie fog that shrouded everything after 200 meters, a white wall that concealed the summit from view until I was practically on top of it. What a great trip!

Coming back down from the summit, the rain and the wind were beginning to pick up, pelting the Montero with a storm-like intensity. Not wanting to waste my time and risk getting trapped in the middle of a storm at the Ranger station, I changed into dry clothes and set off for Ambangeg. Now familiar with the route, the biggest problem was controlling my speed down the descents. Once again I relied on 4WD-Low for the Montero to find its way ’round the rocks, using the brakes sparingly so as not to slide off the route, and minding the embankments to keep the truck from tipping over. I made it back to the DENR office in an hour and half, fully thirty minutes slower than the trip up. The soft rear tire, by the way, held up all the way to Pangasinan, where it was properly re-inflated after a short cooldown period.

My original plan was to spend the night at the office and leave early the next day for the return trip to Manila. But checking my watch and computing times and distances, I figured I could finish all the dangerous zigzag routes with the remaining daylight, have a quick meal in Pangasinan, and make it back home before midnight. With 163 horsepower, a manumatic transmission, a rack-and-pinion steering system that feels the most precise in its class, and a nimble suspension that had just proven it could also handle the rough stuff, making the choice was easy.

I drove it like a bat out of hell and made it home in eight hours, none the worse for wear.