Malepunyo Range (also known as Malipunyo Range,Philippine Commission
"Annual Reports of the War Department, 1906, Vol. 9"
pg. 384. Washington Government Printing Office, 1907. Mount Malepunyo, Mount Malipunyo, Mount Manabu or Mount Malarayat) is an extinct

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

located in

Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...

. The mountain range is located between the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

s of

Batangas Batangas, officially the Province of Batangas ( ), is a first class province of the Philippines located in the southwestern part of Luzon in the Calabarzon region. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 2,908,494 people, making ...

, Laguna and

Quezon Quezon, officially the Province of Quezon () and historically known as Tayabas, is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon Regions of the Philippines, region on Luzon. Lucena, a highly urbanized ci ...

. It is popular among mountaineers, and has three interconnected destinations: Mt. Malepunyo, the highest; Bagwis Peak (also known as ''Mt. Susong-Cambing''); and Mount Dalaga (also known as ''Manabu Peak'').

History

The Malepunyo Range is an inactive volcano with its caldera facing south along the vicinity between

Lipa City Lipa (), officially the City of Lipa (), is a component city in the province of Batangas, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 372,931 people. It is the first city with a charter in the province and one of five ...

and

San Antonio, Quezon San Antonio, officially the Municipality of San Antonio (), is a municipality in the province of Quezon, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 35,891 people. Located in the westernmost part of the province, it is on ...

. By the 1990s the Malepunyo Mountain Range has been erroneously tagged as ''Malarayat Mountain Range'' due to the famous country club located at its western slope named after the Malarayat Hill. Mount Malepunyo is its highest peak located at Barangay Talisay,

standing at

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

by the ridge of its

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

. The second highest peak of the range is Mt. Dalaga standing at

situated at the boundary of

Santo Tomas, Batangas Santo Tomas, officially the City of Santo Tomas ('), is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, component city in the Provinces of the Philippines, province of Batangas, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population ...

and

Alaminos, Laguna Alaminos, officially the Municipality of Alaminos (), is a municipality in the province of Laguna, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 51,619 people. The Municipality of Alaminos is an agro-industrial town that l ...

. During the 1990s, the name was changed by the locals of Santo Tomas to ''Manabu'' as a shortened Tagalog ''mataás na bundók'' (“high mountain"). At the center of the mountain range is a feature known as Bagwis Cliff by the locals, yet due to its shape it is also called ''Susong-Kambing'' (“goat's breast”). In time, mountaineers have also mistakenly named this cliff as ''Susong Dalaga'' (“maiden's breast”), which is actually the oldest name of Manabu Peak. A discontinued highway project connecting San Pablo City and

that traverses the central part of the mountain range made way for the creation of what the mountaineers call as ''Biák na Bundók'' (“cleft mountain”)

Physical characteristics

The Malepunyo mountain range has four notable peaks: :*Mount Malepunyo (Malipunyo) above mean sea level :*Mount Dalaga (Manabu Peak / Susung Dalaga) above mean sea level :*Bagwis Peak (Susung Dalaga / Susung Cambing) above mean sea level :*Malarayat Hill above mean sea level

Geology

Mount Malepunyo is part of the Makiling-Malepunyo Volcanic Complex.

Mount Makiling Mount Makiling (also spelled Maquiling) is an inactive stratovolcano located in the provinces of Laguna and Batangas on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The mountain rises to an elevation of above mean sea level and is the highest feat ...

, located on the southwest rim of

Laguna de Bay Laguna de Bay ( Spanish for "Lagoon/Lake of Bay"; , ), also known as Laguna Lake and alternatively spelled "Laguna de Bae", is the largest lake in the Philippines. It is located southeast of Metro Manila, between the provinces of Laguna to t ...

, is a 16-kilometer-diameter

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a typically conical volcano built up by many alternating layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with ...

that reaches 1115 meters above sea level. The cone is formed by a

pyroclastic flow A pyroclastic flow (also known as a pyroclastic density current or a pyroclastic cloud) is a fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter (collectively known as tephra) that flows along the ground away from a volcano at average speeds of b ...

lahar A lahar (, from ) is a violent type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of Pyroclastic rock, pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a valley, river valley. Lahars are o ...

, airfall, and lava deposits.

Trachyandesite Trachyandesite is an extrusive igneous rock with a composition between trachyte and andesite. It has little or no free quartz, but is dominated by sodic plagioclase and alkali feldspar. It is formed from the cooling of lava enriched in alkal ...

trachydacite Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava (or shallow intrusions) enri ...

s, and

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture (geology), texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained matri ...

are found in the lavas. Welded ash-flow tuffs attest to the eruption's Plinian origin. The La Mesa

tuff ring Phreatomagmatic eruptions are volcanic eruptions resulting from interaction between magma and water. They differ from exclusively magmatic eruptions and phreatic eruptions. Unlike phreatic eruptions, the products of phreatomagmatic eruptions cont ...

, Bijiang, Mapinggon, and Masaia are all examples of smaller satellite edifices. To the south of Mt. Makiling lies a severely eroded north-south trending volcanic range, including Mapinggon, Bulalo, and Malepunyo. The higher portions of this composite volcano are dominated by lava flows and breccias, while pyroclastic flows and lahars dominate the eastern flanks. The age of the andesites from Mount Malepunyo ranges from 1.10 Ma to 0.63 Ma (De Boer and others, 1980; Oles and others, 1991).

Product

The mountain range is a famous source of Alamid Coffee due to

civet A civet () is a small, lean, mostly nocturnal mammal native to tropical Asia and Africa, especially the tropical forests. The term ''civet'' applies to over a dozen different species, mostly from the family Viverridae. Most of the species's div ...

cats that chew on coffee beans and ferments the seeds inside their digestive systems. The fermented coffee beans are then excreted along mountain trails, gathered, cleaned, and pulverised for coffee preparation.

Hiking

The jurisdiction of the Malepunyo Range is separated into two. Manabu peak is under the jurisdiction of Santo Tomas, Batangas, with its jump-off at Sitio Sulok. It resembles an easy trail to which a cross has been erected on its summit while a plateau beside it is used as a saddle camp. The southern half is under the jurisdiction of Lipa City, Batangas and the jump-off is located at Sitio Talisay. To which the trail leads to the summit of Mount Malepunyo.(2007-10-25
"Mt. Malepunyo (Mt. Malarayat)"
Pinoy Mountaineer. Retrieved on 2011-09-26. A class-4 trail connects Malipunyo to Manabu peak which passes through the vicinity of Bagwis Peak and the grassland plateau leading to Biak-na-Bundok and by the dense forest of the mountain range towards the plateau campsite of Manabu.

References

External links

Mt. Malepunyo (Mt. Malarayat)
on Pinoy Mountaineer *{{cite gvp, name=Malepunyo, vn=273807, access-date=2021-06-25

Malepunyo Malepunyo Range (also known as Malipunyo Range,Philippine Commission"Annual Reports of the War Department, 1906, Vol. 9" pg. 384. Washington Government Printing Office, 1907. Mount Malepunyo, Mount Malipunyo, Mount Manabu or Mount Malarayat) is ...

Landforms of Batangas Landforms of Laguna (province) Landforms of Quezon Pleistocene stratovolcanoes Stratovolcanoes of the Philippines