How to Get Your Parents to Climb the Highest Mountain in Your Country

10 lessons learned from a year of hiking + My 6 favorite trail questions

Author’s image of The summit of Mt. Apo (2956+ MASL) in Davao, Philippines.

In the last week of 2022, my parents and I climbed the tallest mountain in the Philippines, Mt. Apo.

I’m assuming you opened this link because you want to do the same:

STEP 1: Wait for your parish priest, who climbs Mt. Apo every year, to invite you and your devout parents. Duh.

We’re walking out of our first post-pandemic, in-person mass when we bump into Fr. Guy.

“Mt. Apo Dec 27–29?”.

If you don’t have a parish priest who has reached Mt. Everest’s base camp, goes to the gym as often as he goes to mass, and climbs Mt. Apo once a year, our doors are open! Mary the Queen Parish is the place to be.

If neither you nor your parents are Catholic or devout, and moving churches is not your cup of tea, then I am sorry, but you will find little value in the rest of this list.

STEP 2: Say yes on their behalf by buying the plane tickets to Davao without their knowledge. Risks are necessary.

With the seed of possibility planted in my parents’ heads, I could tell that deep down, they badly wanted to go, but they were too afraid to make the decision themselves.

So I did what any good son would do as he got home: I bought 6 round-trip tickets to Davao.

The expression from my parents when they found out over dinner was something to behold. Sensing excitement, anger, fear, thrill, passion, anxiety, and anticipation, I knew there was no turning back now. I was responsible for helping my parents prepare.

STEP 3: In Mike Posner’s words, “Train for climbing mountains by climbing mountains.”

I started by doing yoga with my mom during her free time, but it soon became very apparent that when it came to climbing mountains, nothing beats climbing mountains.

You achieve what you want to achieve by doing what you want to achieve.

Around the first week of November, I brought my parents to climb Mt. Batolusong (645 MASL) in Tanay, Rizal. Then two weeks later, I brought my parents to Mt. Batulao (811 MASL) in Nasugbu, Batangas.

Each mountain was an adventure and a core memory in its own right.

STEP 4: With a taste of the hiking experience and the depressing realization that you are remarkably unprepared, you can go shopping.

I underestimated how expensive preparations could be, especially for first-time hikers like my parents. Here are just some of the things I can remember buying and their average cost:

Image of a rough draft of our shopping list. Decathlon was our best friend. Prices are in PHP.

The good thing is most hiking gear can last a lifetime, so I’m expecting expenses on subsequent hikes to decrease drastically.

STEP 6: Message everyone you know and borrow any hiking gear they may own.

I would see my mom on Viber every night, reaching out to anyone vaguely outgoing and adventurous to see what camping paraphernalia they may have stored.

Through this means my parents found their tent, sleeping bag, utensils, plates, and jackets.

STEP 6: Climb more mountains to test out your new gear.

Our culminating mountain and my parents’ very first overnight hike came in the form of Mt. Ulap (1846 MASL) in Itogon, Benguet.

My goal was to simulate the experience of hiking two days in a row, sleeping through cold winds in a tent, and climbing a mountain with 10–15kg bags.

This was where we first tested our tents, our bags, and our shoes.

It’s incredibly important to break them in!

STEP 7: Make a spreadsheet laying out your itinerary.

Flying to hike is a logistical nightmare.

I didn’t want my parents to worry about anything more, so I took charge of thinking about where we sleep before and after our hike, how we would get around while in Davao, how we would store bags that wouldn’t go up with us, and what we would do with our dirty things when we returned.

Image of our 6D5N itinerary was planned to the hour.

Image of my template list of things to bring. I replicate this for any hike I go on.

STEP 8: Last-minute packing, last-minute shopping, last-minute panicking.

It has to be last minute. Who even packs ahead of time?

STEP 9: Climb.

This was the easy part.

I always knew my parents, who have completed dozens of marathons and trail runs, could hike Mt. Apo, so the moment we boarded the plane was when I knew my job was finished.

The challenge of getting my parents to climb Mt. Apo was to make them feel like they could too.

Selfie of My parents and their porters descending from the 87-degree Boulder Face of Mt. Apo.

BONUS: I‘m a reflective type. My experiences live on with me in the form of lessons.

Here are 10 things I learned from my past four years of hiking:

1. Go slow. It’s a long game. It’s not how fast you go but how little you slow down.
2. If you use walking sticks, set them at a height that reaches your solar plex. Otherwise, you will injure yourself as I did.
3. It’s lonely at the top. You’ll realize arriving first at the summit doesn’t feel so good as sharing the moment of completion with some good company.
4. No two hikes are the same. This was my second time at Mt. Apo, and I felt like I had climbed a different mountain. The greatest fault of our species is our tendency to think we know what will happen (got this from some book).
5. Learn as much as you can about your campsite as possible. 75% of hiking is camping. Most people worry about the strength of their legs and their aerobic endurance. Not enough thought goes into details like finding a water source, setting up a tent, so water does not leak in, staying warm throughout the night, and setting aside space for trash. Our camp was a muddy mess that we were not prepared for.
6. Drink water! You’ll never appreciate water as much as on a hike. I like to have 3L with me at the start of any ascent or descent.
7. You can survive on a lot less than you think.
8. You don’t conquer a mountain, the mountain conquers you.
9. Your shoes can break anytime. It pays to have rugby, string, super glue, or an extra pair of hiking sandals.
10. Bring vitamins! For some reason, I get feverish on the first night of any major hike. It disappears eventually, but the feeling is terrible.

BONUS: I love questions, and I love hikes because they offer me the perfect context to ask them.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1. If everything in your life went right, where would you be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, or 30 years?
2. Follow up: Revel in that feeling of success 30 years from now. . . Is there anything you can do right now to recreate that feeling? Not the successes. Just the feeling.
3. If you could relive one day this year, what day would that be?
4. If you could live anywhere in the world, what landscape would you choose? City? Beach? Mountain? A mix?
5. If you had to give a TED talk in the next 10 minutes, what would your topic be?
6. Tell me something I don’t know about you.

🚀 Want similar travel notes and research to inspire your next adventure? Join me at Atomic Travels to get this straight in your inbox.