North Luzon – Page 37 – Philippine-Sailor

Media Category: North Luzon

The category of North of Baguio will encompass all the provinces in that region.

Zc922

Zc922. 181116 Villa Verde hike, middle section 002. This is my GPS track of the walk, zoomed in with some landmarks.

Zc921

Zc921. 181116 Villa Verde hike, middle section 001. This is my GPS track of the walk and also gives you a bigger picture of the Villa Verde Trail area.

Zc930

Zc930. 181116 Villa Verde hike, middle section 013. This a long view up and ahead, at the distance is where the 745 meter high ridge, branches off from this main one.

Zc929

Zc929. 181116 Villa Verde hike, middle section 012. At many bends or ravines the embankment of the trail or now the new road needs to be enforced like this.

Zc928. 181116 Villa Verde hike, middle section 011. A look back on this hike, left is the 745 meter high ridge line that blocked my view much of the time. The high, high mountains at left are part of the Caraballo Mountain Spur, which the Villa Verde Trail crosses. Straight ahead is the Central Luzon Plains.

Zc927

Zc927. 181116 Villa Verde hike, middle section 010. On of my first view on this hike, you can see this is not an easy job to build this road, a lot of cutting has to be done.

Zc920

Zc920. These km stones have been recently replaced; it says 12 km to Imugan Town. From there to Santa Fe it is about another 8 km, so from here to Santa Fe, about 20 km, the Villa Verde Trail/Road or the new Pangasinan-Nueva Viscaya Road is concreted except about 100 meters. Don’t ask me why, I am sure there is some bureaucratic reason. The entrance to Malico Village is about 1 km from here, I consider this the western Salacsac Pass.

Zc919

Zc919. That ridgeline ahead, down from the road, houses the WWII tank, which makes me believe that the Villa Verde had several tracks reaching the Salacsac Passes at Malico Village.

Zc918

Zc918. This is a similar look back, as in the last picture, from the Caraballo Cliffs towards the ridge in the background. In between we see Hill 1053 which is used by the Villa Verde Trail/Road to connect these two mountain ridges. The Villa Verde Trail runs along the watershed line between the two rivers, left is the head water of the Cabalisian River which drains to the left and south and remember the new bridge was built to cross it at the start of the Villa Verde Trail, Pangasinan End. To the right is headwaters of the Ambayabang River, it starts in part at Malico, hooks to the north, then makes another large curve to the left and flows south into the Agno River.

Zc917

Zc917. This is another look back; I am passed several ravines, passed the blasting area and more important we can see where the Villa Verde trail reaches the Caraballo Mountain Cliffs after it crossed the expanse from that ridge in the background.