Cordillera is so much blessed with beautiful mountains. They are not only beautiful in our eyes but they are also very beautiful to trek. It has the 2 highest mountains here in Luzon and both of them are very satisfying to climb. Mt Tabayoc is located in Kabayan Benguet, near Pulag. If you are a lake lover or if you love to swim, then you are lucky. Here, you will see not only 1 or 2 lakes, but 4 lakes.
Mt.Tabayoc via Ballay is a three day hike but the first day will be very easy because you can camp in Lake Tabeo, and there you can do whatever you like, swim, go socialize with your teammates etc. Lake Tabeo is located 2206 ft above sea level so expect the temperature to be cold in here. You will enter a thick rainforest before reaching Lake Tabeo, it was a good thing that I was wearing a pants or I would have a lot of cuts. You will reach the summit in day 2 but you won’t get to see the sunrise because it’s a 3 hour assault to the summit.
Upon your descent, you can explore the three other lakes which are all very pristine. I can say that Ambulalakao is the best of them because it is the cleanest lake that I have seen so far. Once we were back in Ballay, I noticed that the hill was much like the grassland in Mt. Pulag. I discovered from my teammates that it was called Junior Pulag by most hikers because of this feature. If you reach Ballay near sunset, then you can stay over a local house there. They will charge just a small fee and our immersion with them was fun. Or, you can also camp at Lake Tabeo like in Day 1.