The moment I saw Treasure Mountain in Facebook, I know I have to go there someday. It promises an easy pass to “sea of clouds”. You don’t have to climb a mountain so to speak. Not that I am not fond of climbing mountains. Sometimes you just want to relax, take things easy. You want to take selfies in the mountainside without looking haggard and sweaty. (This is great for pre-nup shoot actually. I saw this in their page.) Manila habitants would also rejoice since it can only takes 3 hours to get here. More importantly, this is for the people who are incapable of climbing mountains for health reasons. In my case, I brought my mother here. I can never bring her to rigorous hiking. But thank goodness , there is treasure mountain.

Allow me to manage your expectation first. There is NO GUARANTEE you’ll see sea of clouds. It depends on the mood of the nature. But on the morning of June 24, 2018, we got super lucky.

Treasure Mountain is located at Sitio May Sawa Brgy. Cuyambay, 1980 Tanay, Rizal. I will categorize the ways to go here in three modes.

A. Chillax Mode. There is less commuting efforts and there is definitely no hike involved. Straight to the mountain beshies.

1. Go to Tanay Public Market with this 3 options.

• From Starmall in front of Megamall, ride a jeep or FX (UV express) going to Tanay Market
• From MRT Cubao, ride an FX or Jeepney going to Tanay Market.
• From LRT Santolan, ride FX going to Tanay Market.

2. From Tanay Public Market, ride a tricycle straight to Treasure Mountain. This will cost P500.00. I think that could accommodate  four persons already, as long as you fit in one tricycle. I got our trike near Puregold, somewhere around Public Market.

B. Adventurer Mode. I called it this way because it takes a lot of commuting and it gives you an opportunity to have 20-minutes trek to sea of clouds.

• Ride a van or jeepney going to Cogeo Gate 2 or Padilla
• Ride a jeepney bound to Sampaloc, Tanay
• Get-off at Sitio Maysawa, waiting shed or the jump-off to the Maysawa Circuit
• Trek for 45 minutes or take a tricycle to Treasure Mountain

C. Detour Mode. We did this one unexpectedly.

We came from Antipolo because we visited Luljetta Hanging Garden first. The original plan is from there, we will travel to Treasure Mountain and stay overnight. I even reserved a room. But there was quite a heavy rainfall. Aside from that, all jeepneys going to Tanay were all full. Tricycle from Antipolo woudn’t even agree to bring us even in Tanay Market because it was too far. I was highly discouraged and actually decided to go home already. We stopped by in a restaurant in Morong to have dinner. We had a chitchat with the crew there and they suggested we stay in a low-cost apartelle nearby to rest then just travel at 2 am. We decided to take this advice.

This is Hanson’s Apartelle in Teresa, Antipolo and it have crazy low rates. Great for the people who went on Antipolo tour. Or people who want to have shorter travel time for their tour in Tanay, Rizal.

We took the 6 hours Aircon room. This is for two people only. We just added P100.00 for extra person. So all-in-all we spent P550.00 pesos. Not bad right?

This is the room. There’s no much facility here. No wifi, no extra outlet, the t.v was old.  I But who would I to  complain? It is expensive and a truly decent room to stay for a short time. The CR is okay too. It is clean.

At 2:30 am, we took a jeepney going to Tanay. We dropped-off Puregold near Tanay Public Market and immediately got a trike going straight to Treasure Mountain. Even though it was still dark, we already saw a LOT of sea of clouds along the way. I was so happy.

REGISTRATION

I am quite disappointed with this one. We arrived at around 4:30 am. But we were greeted with an empty registration area. (Well except dogs were there.) I read that the day tour starts at 4 am so I expect that it would open at this time. Time is of the essence for me. Sea of clouds may disappear And I need to set-up in a good spot for photos. Also we were also there for the sunrise.    I  think the staff arrived at 5 am.

Entrance fee is only P 150.00 each person for DAY TOUR.

But there’s no time for bad vibes. Sea of Clouds is waiting for us and we have to hurry!

I intentionally brought this skirt for awra purposes haha!

Nang umakyat si Inang Kapatagan sa Kabundukan…

The Sea of clouds rose up from where stood. There was a moment of zero visibility here. If this is water, we were drowned for sure. But this is clouds and we are happy to drown. Now, it’s great for coffee drinking session.

FOODS and DRINKS

After taking so much photos, it’s time to get hungry and satisfy our coffee cravings because of cold temperature.  Treasure mountain has a small restaurant which is open from 6 am to 9pm.

These are the rates of the food here. It’s quite pricey for silog meals but reasonable since we’re on top of a mountain. Coffee by the way is P20.00 per cup.

Another resto option that I haven’t tried is  The Lounge at Treasure Mountain.

These are some of the dramatic photos I took

Thanks to my sister for assisting me for these shots  taken during sunrise.

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RATES SUMMARY base on Treasure Mountain fb page as of October 5, 2017: 

Entrance Fee

• Day(4am to 3pm): P150.00
• Over- night(4pm to 1pm): P200.00

Overnight

•     Tent Pitching: P300.00
•     Tent Rental: P500.00 / tent for a capacity of 2 persons, P800.00 / tent for a capacity of 4 persons
•      Sleeping mat rental: P200.00
•      Room Lodging: P500.00 minimum of 2 persons and maximum of 5 guests. Sleeping mat inclusive.

Side-Trip

•  Bosay Falls : P500.00 for tour guide, maximum of 5 guests

Cars are welcome to go directly here but be warned that there are parts of  the road that has still no pavement year. This will be on the driver’s discretion.

They have decent CR too. Quite muddy and dark but understandable since this is on top of a mountain.

Going back to Tanay Public Market is easy too. There’s a tricycle terminal just walking distance away from Treasure Mountain.

That’s all for now. I have a lot of videos here that I have not processed yet. Overall, this is a beautiful place for relaxation and mountainside photo-ops. It’s inexpensive and require no long travel time from Manila.  The cons are  late opening of Registration area and very slow-response in their fb page. My reservation for a room took about 4 days to be processed. But still, I will definitely come back here because I haven’t roamed the area. I have missed beautiful spots for more photo-ops. And I haven’t done the original plan of Astrophotography practice here.

For inquiries, here’s the link Treasure Mountain Fb Page.

Bye Beshies for now!

I’ll leave you with this GIF.

And this BTS photo taken by mother that I’m really fond of.

And a MORAL LESSON!

RAIN is not always a bad thing.  After the rain, there will be rainbows. And also SEA of CLOUDS!  (Wew that was deep -_- ….)

Kidding aside, if we gave up because of the heavy rain,  we would have not seen this breathtaking view. That translate to real life as well. So don’t give up with life struggles. Always looks for detour to get what you want.