Memories of Mt Ophir a.k.a. Gunung Ledang

Continuation from this entry.

And so, there I was, at 3.50am, all packed and ready to drive to Joo Tat's place. We car pooled to Kemayan Square where we met up with some of the team.

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Everyone was punctual and we left at the scheduled time : 4.30am. I was in Sirdar's car together with JasonW. With only 4.5 hours sleep the night before, I closed my eyes while talking to Sirdar.

The drive was smooth and we arrived at Tangkak at 5.35am. Had breakfast at a restaurant crazy enough to open for business at a god-forsaken hour. Feeling rather hungry (and nervous), I had kuey teow soup and Milo.

After breakfast, I was introduced to the other climbers. Many of them looked unfamiliar. I made a conscious effort to remember their names and faces but after being introduced to so many people, I gave up.

We left the restaurant at about 6.05am. From there, it was about 10 minutes before we had to turn into a palm oil plantation. We drove for quite a distance, following whatever available signboards posted at strategic locations.

Finally, we came to the entrance of the park.

It was still dark and we were indeed early. Messner and Sirdar gave a short briefing on what to do and what not to do.

We then walked up to the park management office where we were each given a piece of paper to fill out what "disposable" (non bio-degradable) things we would be carrying with us during the climb. I was forewarned by Eunice about this and already had in mind what to write.

This is my list. The first one mentioned "plastic wrapped food" So of course I only counted the number of plastic which had food in it. I had several other plastic bags which I didn't declare simply because I don't have food in there.

At 7.30am, Iceberg led us on a 7-minute basic warm up to loosen our muscles.

We had a second briefing by the park management and were introduced to our guides. I was told that initially, we requested 4 guides because 38 people signed up for the climb. A few people pulled out due to some unforseen circumstances (err... like a leak in the house, backache, etc) and we were down to 28 people.

Our guides (the 2nd person from the left is part of the management team)

Messner was planning to ask if they could reduce the number of guides from 4 to 3, thus saving us RM140.

The good news was that they only had 3 guides available that morning because one of the guides had stuff to do that day. It worked out well for both parties.


A group photo was taken to ensure that IF we were to loose anyone during the climb, at least we had a nice picture of that person on the day he/she breathed his/her last. (just kidding!)

At 7.46am, we started our 5.8km climb. Everyone was in high spirits and were chatting away.

It was stairs, stairs and more stairs. All 728 of them. YES! I counted the steps. Eunice was convinced it was about 500 steps and asked ME to count them one by one.

I was half-dead even before I reached the 100th step. And slowly, one by one, everyone started to move ahead of me. I stopped many times to catch my breath. Thank God I had JohnL to accompany me. Sirdar and JasonW were also kind enough to be nearby incase I needed their help.

Not long after the steps ended, we arrived at CP1. The time showed 8.07am.

Iceberg, who was waaaaay in front in the begining, fell back and wanted to turn back. He had just recovered from a terrible flu and didn't sleep much the night before. I was told that after the mosquito coil ran out prematurely (due to the full blast of the fan), he was greatly disturbed by the buzzing music near his ears.

I encouraged him to continue and to set his summit point at CP5. "Follow my pace, and you'll be alright", I told John and Iceberg. (secretly, I didn't want to be the last one up!!!)

With that in mind, they trudged on, detemined to reach CP5 so that they could turn back. Somewhere along the path, Sirdar, seeing that I was huffing and panting, decided to lighten my load. I kept insisting that my backpack was not the reason why I was panting so hard. I was just a natural panter :) JasonW took over being my porter after CP2.

We came upon Messner with his first aid kit out. I heard bits and pieces of conversation as to what happened. Faith grabbed on to some plant with thorns on it.

We walked on and reached CP2 at 8.23am and CP3 at 8.49am. The terrain was a gradual slope with lots of leaves covering the soft ground.

We were told not to litter the place. Interestingly enough, we came upon some bottles with black liquid in it on the side of the pathway. My first thought was that some of the climbers didn't want to carry a heavy load up and kept them there so that they could collect on their way back. What a great idea, I thought to myself.

As we walked on, we saw more of these bottles. Later I was told that it contained a kind of chemical to harden the soil.

We came to a small clearing, where to the left, leads to Sg Tiga Segi and to the right, to Kolam Gajah. Gulp! Elephants in the mountain??? In a pond? I half expected to hear the elephants trumpet but I was greeted with silence.

There was no CP4. The trail after CP3 was relatively easy. At one point, we were practically going down, down, down. I was happily moving at a faster speed. This is easy, I thought.

I remember PeterK said that Cecelia (his wife) commented that the trail is too easy. Sirdar was quick to answer that CK said the same, and then regretted because his words came back to haunt him after CP5.

We reached CP5 at 9.56am. The rest of the team were there. JohnL, Iceberg, Chih and his wife turned up about 10 minutes later. Initially, Chih who was not feeling well, wanted to turn back. Somehow he managed to feel good enough to continue with the climb.

We took a 15 minute break. Food and liquid disappeared into everyone. The once fresh air was polluted by the guides who were on one side, smoking away.

The trail was steep after CP5


The fun began after CP5. We were warned that from the check point onwards, the trail would be significantly tougher. True enough, the trail got so steep. I had to literally walk up two steps, pant a lot, stop, take a few deep breaths and continue the same pattern over and over again. We relied on the tree roots to heave ourselves up.

At the entrance of the cave

We reached CP6 at 10.56am. Here, we had to go through two caves. So scary, yet exciting. We had to haul ourselves up using ropes. There was one point when someone said that it was the best time for Cecelia to ask PeterK if he loves her.... and if the answer is "no", she has the right to kick him down.

After that, we came to the anak Batu Hampar. I was quite scared when I saw how steep it was. Once again, ropes were there to help us up but I went up with the help of the tree roots on the right side of this boulder.

But then, that was NOTHING compared to the mother of all rocks. It was high and steep. Surprisingly, I was not worried. I told Sirdar that I could do it without much fear. Three ropes hung down for us. Sirdar insisted that I use the middle rope while the guide and he would sandwich me.

I didn't want to stress my poor arms and moved up at a comfortable pace. It was certainly a nice experience. When I finally got up to the top, I looked down, and there I saw Siva, lying on his back, in the middle of the slope, taking pictures. And before I know it, Sirdar and PeterK decided to do something crazy. They tried going down midway just to see how difficult it would be, should they decide to get back to the base via this route.

Taman Bonsai came into view. Indeed, there were lots of nice bonsai-like looking trees. It was a change of scenery for us. A relief, after going through so many tall trees.

It was at this section when Chih's left leg began to cramp. Sirdar helped massage his thighs to ease the cramp. (ha! from the picture, it looked as though Sirdar was doing "something else")

Bukit Botak was next and one could easily see the relevance of the name. There were lots of bare sections and with the sun scorching down, I hurriedly put on my cap.

This picture was taken when we arrived at Bukit Botak

I saw the above IJM sign pasted onto a tree trunk and thought .. gulp!!!! Does this mean that there were so many people whose heart problems acted up right in the midst of climbing this mountain that they had to station an IJM (Institut Jantung Malaysia) facility nearby?

We came to CP7 (I couldn't find the signboard) at 12.23pm, where there was supposed to be water for us to refill our containers. But there was no water because of the dry season. I retrieved my bag from JasonW at this point.

We rested for 5 minutes before continuing our journey.

The climb got dangerously steeper just as we were about to reach the summit. I had to mentally remind myself not to look down.

These ladders helped us a lot. It's so much better than using the ropes to pull ourselves up.

After climbing a series of ladders and suddenly I saw Peter Lai sitting under a tree. His job was to tick off every climber who reaches the summit. I was somewhat relieved when he said, "Just go up a little more and you'll reach the summit". After climbing for 5 hours, it was nice to hear that.

I arrived at the peak at exactly 1pm. The view was breathtaking. And even though the sun was shining brightly, we didn't perspire much because of the strong winds.

I plonked myself beside JohnL, opened my bag and took out a packet of sliced cucumbers. I remember MayHui and her cucumbers from my Gunung Angsi Climb. I offered everyone near me a slice of this succulent vegetable. When I offered one to JasonW, Sirdar joked and commented, "There you go, JasonW. Your porter fee is a slice of cucumber"

I was hungry and checked my bag for more food. I brought out my bread and cheese sandwich and started eating it. I only took 3 bites and decided that it was too dry for my dehydrated body. Sirdar took out his packet of food - mee hoon and bread with fried egg. I happily volunteered to eat the fried egg sandwich for him.

To be continued in the next posting. Meanwhile, have a look at the pictures taken at the summit:-