Reach the trail head a distance up the mountain where the tarmac turns to gravel. Stretch your limbs for the hard initial climb through a boulder strewn road through tangled forest land.
Reach a ridge with patches of old plantation and start the traverse. The trail dips and surges over forest, grassland and abandoned plantations.
Watch your step in the treacherous ground covered by tall elephant grass. Stop for photographs as the mountain side looms above, occasionally wreathed in driving mist.
Reach the mud thatch huts of an isolated settlement and hike through the easy terrain till the trail veers off the mud road and teeters sharply uphill.
Bushwhack over the gradient that sorely tests your knees. But the views holds out much promise as you reach the ridge, with the bleached white concrete cross beckoning you to suffer through the last few hundred feet.
Haul yourself on the last outcropping of boulders and gasp at the view, and the sudden drop after the cross. Start back after getting your fill of fresh breeze and views. Nurse your knees they absorb the impact on the sharp downhill stretch to the mudroad.
Take a shorter deviation down to your waiting vehicle and proceed back downhill and towards your accommodations.