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	The earliest ascents of peaks in the Philippines were virtually unrecorded. Ascents of Mount Apo,the highest in the country, however, were recorded  in the 1800s. These recorded ascents were done mostly for scientific, rather than recreational or sporting activity.               Climbing Philippine mountains as a sport probably started in the 1960s while the establishment of mountaineering clubs began  only in the 1970's. Probably because of such factors as the long tradition of insurgency in the boondocks and the absence of alpine summits in the archipelagic country, Philippine Mountaineering came in late (by then all the 14 eight-thousanders had already been climbed) and the nature of its practice is far removed from the world currents in mountaineering.               There is hardly a significant fraction among practicing mountaineers in the country that engaged in alpine mountaineering, much less in expeditionary climbing whether for high-altitude climbing or Himalayan rock-climbing.              A typical climb in the Philippines is done in a modest scale hardly exceeding a climbing period of six days.The Philippine peaks could not provide the high risks involved in alpinism characterized by harsh conditions such as sub-zero temperatures, snow avalanches, volatile ice and snow conditions and the decreased oxygen supply in the atmosphere at very high altitudes.With the relative ease of climbing in Philippine peaks, the mountaineers in the country have had the tendency to find 'higher' risks in variant disciplines like spelunking, rock-climbing/sport climbing and, lately, adventure racing.              Coming out in the third decade of mountaineering in the Philippines, the Singarong Backpackers (SB) was founded in 1996 with obliviousity to the state of mountaineering in the home-country, much more in world mountaineering. Gradually, the SB gained this bird's eye view and saw itself - its limitations and potentials. It saw the need to spearhead the forgotten path of mountaineering in the Philippine setting - the practice of nonguided tropical peak climbing, the ultimate challenge of mountaineering in the country. Truly, in Nonguided Tropical Climbing the dominant factors are not temperature and altitude - the gargantuan factors to hurdle in Alpine Climbing. However, Tropical Climbing exacts in orientation, water-procurement and biological hazards for its difficulty/risk challenge.