Baguio City: Secret Mountain

on our last day since we've pretty much covered up all of those contained in the itinerary i prepared, we thought of going to Ambuklao Dam. I checked out the Dam before going to Baguio and the views were quite interesting. The dampener was the travel time going there.

So i took the Ambuklao Road from the Leonard Wood Rotonda. At the onset i made sure i asked 3 people how far and how much time it would take going to the Dam to somehow validate those i read over the internet. i was quite surprised at the different answers, one was 1.5 hours, the other 1 hour and the last one was 30 minutes.

I forced myself to believe the 30 minute guy, so we went our way.

about 5 minutes into our drive along Ambuklao Road, i chanced upon this view. i thought, hey the view is not that bad.


then i stopped by here, by now i got excited. maybe i'm on to something here. what a waste this house was. why demolish the house with such a great view.

we reached this site where these two locals were having a nice chat. what a nice site. early morning conversation, chilly weather and a great view, the makings of a wonderful day ahead.


and since there was a road perpendicular to it, i decided to stop for a minute and click away.

upon seeing this site i totally forgot about Ambuk-whattt?

it had the same view as those in Good Shepherd and Mines View without the traffic and the crowd.

here are two shots with different settings. here the sky has a more dramatic effect to it.

here the flash was left on for a better foreground lighting but the sky was not as dramatic as the first one. any suggestions of achieving both?

well, asking the two locals finally how far Ambuklao Dam was, we were told it will take us 45 minutes (another different answer). that would take us 1.5 hours going to and from so we decided to not push through with it.

anyway, i had a feeling of contentment discovering this truly incredible view. one i call "Secret Mountain" until it's named.