Mt. Talinis didn't ease us in — it swallowed us in mud from the very first hour. April 2017, and the trail was still soft from recent rain, boots sinking with every step, sucking sounds following us up narrow switchbacks slick as soap. We slipped more than we walked, grabbing roots and each other's arms, laughing every time one of us lost a shoe to the mud entirely.
Then the fog rolled in. It came fast, swallowing the trail ahead until we could barely see ten feet in front of us — just shapes of trees looming out of white, and each other's voices as the only proof we hadn't wandered off alone. Everything went quiet except our breathing and the squelch of mud underfoot. For a stretch, it felt like walking through a dream we couldn't quite wake from.
And then, without warning, it cleared. The fog peeled back like a curtain pulled open, and suddenly Negros Oriental was laid out beneath us — impossibly bright, impossibly close, the whole coastline glinting under a sun that hadn't been there minutes ago. We just stood there, muddy and stunned, not saying anything for a while.
The summit came wrapped in fog again, so thick we almost missed the marker. But standing there, soaked, filthy, and grinning, we didn't need the view to know we'd earned it. Some hikes give you a postcard. This one gave us mud up to our knees and a memory we still bring up years later.