A rough, winding road leads to the dwarf forest of Dinagat Islands — a hidden paradise standing at the edge of the world's widest ocean.

I Climbed a Mountain of Rock to Find the Philippines' Dwarf Forest

By Joseph Pasalo

LORETO, Dinagat Islands — The road ran out of cement long before we reached the top. What was left was bare rock and a climb so steep that my pickup seemed to point straight at the sky. I held the wheel tight, took a breath, and kept going. When the ground finally leveled off, I stepped out into something I had only heard about in stories: a whole forest of tiny, old trees, none of them taller than a person, spread across the mountain like a garden made for giants.

This is the dwarf forest of Dinagat — and getting here is half the tale.

A province at the edge of the deep

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Dinagat Islands is not an easy place to reach. There is no airport and no direct flight. To get here, you first have to cross the sea. Our day began at the port of Surigao City, the capital of Surigao del Norte, where the ferries to Dinagat are loaded before sunrise.

We brought our own pickup, a Hilux, on board the roll-on, roll-off ferry. For those wondering about the cost, taking a vehicle across runs to nearly 5,000 pesos. At exactly five in the morning, with only a few cars on deck, the ship pulled away from the mainland.

The weather had been calm when we left Mindanao, but Dinagat met us with rain and a cold wind that came and went. Two hours later, we docked at the port of Basilisa.

What makes this province special is also what keeps it humble. It faces the Pacific, the widest ocean in the world, and sits little more than 100 kilometers from the deepest waters in the Philippines. Yet few people ever speak of it. To my own surprise, this quiet corner near Mindanao hides scenery that reminded me of Palawan and Caramoan.

Coming back, and going farther

It had been more than a year since I last set foot in Dinagat. That first time, we only explored the south. So much has changed since then — new roads, new buildings — and on this trip I wanted to reach the far north of the province, the part most travelers never see.

Because the journey is long and the way is hard, I reached out to the local tourism office before arriving. Even with the province busy handling its own daily concerns, they welcomed us warmly. Ma'am Daryl met us first, and later Sir Alon and Sir Bonifacio would help guide us through the islands.

A ship on the mountain, and a war remembered

High on one of the hills stands a building shaped like a warship. It is the IJN Yamashiro-inspired hall, named after a Japanese Navy vessel that sank in the waters between Dinagat and Leyte during the Second World War.

Inside, I learned this is far more than a monument. It is also the governor's office and a center where people come to ask for medical and financial help — a building that serves both history and the living. On one wall hangs a painting of the Dinagat hairy-tailed cloud rat, a small animal found nowhere else, once believed to be gone for good until it was rediscovered in these very forests.

"At first, Dinagat was not part of the story," one official told me. The people here are working to change that — to remind the world that this small province played its own part in freeing the country. They do not glorify the war, they said. They only want its memory kept honest.

The hidden lagoon

From the capital, we drove almost an hour and a half north toward Barangay Magsaysay, under the town of Libjo. The road climbs over the mountains and opens, again and again, onto views of the sea scattered with islands. At one stop, in Barangay Geotina, I could only stand and stare. The word that came to mind was simple: mesmerizing.

Dinagat covers more than 80,000 hectares, with seven towns on its mainland. Each has its own coast, its own mountains, its own islands — and each, it seems, holds a surprise.

At Magsaysay, a short boat ride of barely five minutes brought us to Pangabangan Island. There, white sand meets clear water, and a calm blue lagoon hides in the heart of the island. We even ran into some of our own subscribers, taking in the same view. It is the kind of place you would expect to spend days trying to reach, not minutes.

The long climb to the small forest

The dwarf forest sits in Loreto, the northernmost town. Before heading up, we had to stop at the municipal hall for a permit — 100 pesos each, 300 for the three of us — and pick up a key for the gate that guards the road.

We were warned the climb was meant for 4x4 vehicles. The path is no longer paved, and the rocks along it are large. Our Hilux is only a 4x2, but its body had been raised and its gears improved, so I decided to give it a try. It was, in every sense, extreme off-roading — sharp curves, steep slopes, and stones no ordinary car could cross. To my relief, we made it.

And it was worth every nervous meter.

The dwarf forest, also called the bonsai forest, spreads across more than 100 hectares of the Redondo and Kambinliw mountains. The trees here are not bonsai shaped by human hands. They stay small on their own, held back by soil rich in heavy metals. Some are believed to be hundreds of thousands of years old, yet they rise no higher than your shoulders, almost all of them the same height.

Because the trees are so short, nothing blocks the view. From up there, it felt like standing on a tower with the whole world laid out below — the tip of Mindanao, the island of Leyte, far-off Hibusong, and, on the left, the wide blue Pacific. The wind was cold and clean, the kind I had only felt before in the high mountains of the north.

We had climbed up tired and a little worn out. But standing among those ancient little trees, with the cool air and the endless view, the tiredness simply lifted away.

Some places make you work to reach them. Dinagat's dwarf forest is one of them — and like the best of them, it gives back far more than it ever asks.

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