At 2,938 m, Mount Dulang-dulang - known to climbers simply as
D2 - is the highest point of the Kitanglad Range and the
second-highest mountain in the Philippines, standing above Mount Pulag of
Luzon and yielding only to Mount Apo. Its crown is a hushed, dripping
mossy cloud forest, and it is held sacred by the Talaandig of
Lantapan: climbers pause at a pamalas ritual clearing to ask the spirits'
permission before treading the summit. Three kilometres north stands its twin,
Mount Kitanglad (2,899 m), an inactive volcano whose summit bristles with
broadcast relay towers - the two joined by the classic D2K traverse.
The peaks anchor Mount Kitanglad Range Natural Park, 47,270 hectares of
some of the last old-growth rainforest in the country, declared an ASEAN
Heritage Park in 2009. It shelters over 600 rare and endemic species - among
them the giant Rafflesia schadenbergiana and a nesting population of the
critically endangered Philippine eagle - and remains the ancestral domain
of the Talaandig, Higaonon and Bukidnon peoples, who guard the forest under
their own customary law. West along the ridge rises Mount Maagnaw, the
range's third summit.
Kitanglad is famous for its dawn sea of clouds - the twin summits rising
clear while the whole Bukidnon plateau lies drowned in white. Press the button below
to raise the cloud deck. Terrain is real NASA SRTM elevation draped with Esri World
Imagery; the summit ridge is refined with a denser mesh and z15 imagery. The cloud
deck is stylised.