At 2,170 m, Mount Banahaw is a stratovolcano complex on the border of
Quezon and Laguna provinces, its summit crowned by a breached crater
1.5 by 3.5 km across and 210 m deep, opening to the south. PHIVOLCS lists it
among the country's active volcanoes, though no eruption has been confirmed since a
violent 1730 phreatic explosion tore open the southern rim and sent a mudflow
down to devastate the town of Sariaya; further mudflows followed in 1743, 1843
and 1909. Today it sits quiet at Alert Level 0. Seven kilometres west stands its
smaller twin, Mount San Cristobal (1,470 m), a separate cone entirely - Banahaw
proper carries no lake or renderable water body inside this scene's frame.
Banahaw is revered as the "Holy Mountain" - a folk-Catholic New Jerusalem
where mystic sects known as "Banahaw mystics" or supremos, among them
the Ciudad Mistica de Dios, keep a faith blending Catholic ritual with older
animist belief. During Holy Week, pilgrims climb from Barangay Kinabuhayan to
bathe in sacred springs and pray at caves and rock stations named for Biblical
places - the Kweba ng Dios Ama (Cave of God the Father), the spring pools of
Tatlong Tangke, and viewpoint ledges called the Durungawan.
The massif anchors the Mounts Banahaw-San Cristobal Protected Landscape,
10,901 hectares proclaimed under Republic Act 9847 in 2009, home to 358 tree species
(56 endemic) and hundreds of bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile species found nowhere
else. Its trails have been closed to public trekking since 2004 under a rehabilitation
program after decades of slash-and-burn farming and hiker litter, with only limited,
permit-controlled pilgrim access in some years. Terrain is real NASA SRTM elevation
draped with Esri World Imagery; the summit ridge is refined with a denser mesh and z15
imagery.