The Last Falls Standing : The Mystical Dodiongan Falls

Dodiongan Falls is a 20 metre (65 ft) high waterfall located in Barangay Bonbonon, 14.5 km away from Iligan City in Lanao del Norte province of the Philippines. The area is often touted as a tourist destination for nature lovers travelling in the Philippines, and at the bottom of the falls is a pool which is advertised as being ideal for swimming


Tips On How To Get to Dodiongan Falls

Are you looking for adventure? Do you thirst for thrills? Hungry for excitement? Tired of the monotonous spin in life?

Well, you’ve come to the right site! What better place to visit than the welcoming arms of nature? Digkilaan is one of the many falls located in the beautiful city of Iligan where one can experience nature’s breath-taking beauty. The trip involved is already fun enough, how much more than the actual site itself? Now the question left would be, “How do I get there?”

First of all, you take your convertible up the road starting from San Roque. (Trust me; you do NOT want to go there with just the seat of your pants). All you have to do is just follow that road. Along the way, you’ll see many eye-drawing sites like the Mandulog River for instance. Eventually at the end of the road, you’ll see a fork up ahead. Turn left. One more thing; as you turn left, you’ll also see a road sign saying “Venancio Siarza Memorial School 500m ahead”.

Once you’ve got that covered, continue following that part of the road until you reach a clearing having a simple taste of civilization, specifically nipa huts. Once there, it’s best to ask for a guide among the locals. But if you want to do this on your own, be my guest.

Now in the clearing, you have to cross over the wooden bridge. After that, you either go left or right.

 

LEFT

The left path would eventually take you on a somewhat mountain climbing experience (Don’t worry. This won’t involve you using any fancy thing-a-ma-jigs or doodads. Just a sharp mind and common sense in knowing which rock to step on.Seriously. Oh, and a good pair of footwear as well). Continue on until you see a "poso". This "poso" is also near the river. Most of the residents use this spot to do their laundry. Afterwards, get to the other side by crossing the river. Proceed with extreme caution. We wouldn’t want you to get swept back by the current now, would we?

After that half bath of yours, just go straight down the path of righteousness. Just joking. Just follow the trail. Once you’ve reached the end of that trail, once again, you’ll get-a-climbing.

Once that’s taken care of, you’ll eventually see rocks. Lots and lots of big rocks, weighing more than a ton. Just cautiously climb these giants. From here on, you’ll feel a sudden drop of temperature (obviously caused by your nearing to the falls). And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Ta-da! You have now successfully reached Digkilaan Falls. Be sure to take a breather and feel those raindrops shower down your face! Only the raindrops are horizontal. ;D

Hold it right there! We are still not done yet folks! Apparently, that was only the first part; what you had to do IF you take the left track. Now then, what if you took the right path? Just sit back and watch, I mean, read.

RIGHT

To tell you frankly, the right path is actually the easier way around. BUT it can only be used if the water current is low. You can tell that it’s high if it rained recently.

Now considering the situation it did NOT rain recently and the current is in a low and slow course (plus the fact that you really want to get there the faster way), here’s what you got to do.

First, you got to cross the river immediately. Afterwards, instead of climbing, like in the previous episode, you just simply follow the greenery. In other words, just walk straight through and after a while, you’ll eventually reach the rocks. Climb through and then poof! It became Coco Crunch. Just kidding. After the climb, you’ll be there in no time!

The road trip would take over 1 hour. The hike is about 30 minutes. So the overall trip would take you approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.

When you look at it this way, it actually is just a short time, don’t you think? Cool AND quick. Now that’s one memory worth remembering.