I came, I conquered, I Left…with memories and photographs

Hi all, it’s me, Kim…back from my trip to Mt. Ophir. So if any readers out there who are wondering where I have been to, I hope that answers your question…well so what shall I write for this entry? hmmm….ok I got it, this post will be about my trip at Mt. Ophir, so if you are interested, just read on cos this entry shall be for me to remember the trip other than the many photographs I have taken (shall post some of them here once I got my broadband)….ok… before I begin, let me fill u guys with some facts about Mt. Ophir… the mountain is about 4000 feet, it is the 64th highest mountain in Malaysia and is the 6th most difficult to climb, however close to 150,000 people went there every year. It is situated in Johor, close to the border between Johor and Malacca and there are 4 routes to reach the summit…and yah… that’s all I can remember after reading it from one of their many notice boards there…so now shall carry on to describe the journey…

Day 1, 1700hrs, Ngee Ann Poly Sports Complex

Together with four of my friends, I arrived at the gathering place… After waiting for about 15mins for the whole group to arrive, we started to prepare the stores and divide the load among us…there were altogether 16 of us, 11 of them are my camp mates and the rest are TAS(The Adventure Seekers) members from Ngee Ann Poly who are following us for the trip…yah…after all the things are packed and checked, we set off with excitement and anticipation…

Day 2, 0030 hours, Carpark outside the park HQ

We arrived at the carpark outside the admin HQ of the park…the whole bus journey took us 6 hours and its damn boring to sit in the bus for so long…esp since the journey is at night and there are practically nothing to see other than rows and rows of closed shop houses and big plots of plantations lining the road…anyway after reaching there we lay out our groundsheet and slept at the carpark…At 0700hrs, we woke up and had a rather good breakfast of roti-prata at one of the stalls there… At 0800hrs, we moved into the park…well… along the road leading to the registration counter, there were rows of chalets lining it, so if you are not on a budget, you can actually book a chalet, sleep there, climb up, washed up and rest before heading back to Singapore…yah…anyway after registering our group at the park office, we start our ascent up with our park ranger, Tom leading the whole group… the plan was to climb to checkpoint 5(altogether there were about 8 checkpoints lidat, cant rem the exact no liao) harbour there and then at 2am the next day, carry on to the summit and watch the sunrise…the ascent up was quite ok…not very tiring…just that you have to overcome obstacles like fallen trees and streams…some parts are also quite tricky and you have to use ropes and ladders to climb up or grab at the many tree roots protruding out from the ground to heave yourself with the heavy backpack up…some of you may know but for those who dun know… two gals from TAS, Yvonne and Erina were following us and I think they impressed me a lot…even though they were quite petite, they carried a 20kg plus load from one CP(checkpoint) to the next CP, and being veteran climbers they knew quite a lot of skills which impressed me, somemore, they were also quite fit, in fact fitter than some of my camp mates…haha…yah…newae we reached CP5 at 12 lidat…after tt its lunch and rest.

Day 3, CP5, 0200 hours

Leaving our backpacks at our harbour area, and equipped with a water bag, torchlight, light stick and a windbreaker, we continued our ascent up to the summit… this time its more difficult cos its night and there were no moonlight so we depended a lot on our torchlights…not exactly a very wise thing when you were trying to shine your path with your torchlight in hand while holding onto a rope and making your way up a 30 degree vertical slope..yah…so my advice is…get a head harness so tt your hand will be free of stuff…ok the journey up took about 5 hours and by the time we reached, the sun was just about to rise…the whole scenery up there is simply amazing…the clouds were just below you(yes.. its not a typo error…tts how high we climbed) and the whole place below is one big patch of green…the wind also keep blowing and up there its damn cold hence the windbreaker is a must…dunno how to describe it…you got to be there to experience it yourself…all I can saw is that the view is definitely worth the sweat and effort…yah…stayed there till 0800 hours before we make our way down to CP5, have breakfast, break tents and make our way down.. which was about 1330 by the time we reached the base of Mt. Ophir…which marks the end of the trip.

So tts all from me…if you ask me what I like about the trip… the answer is everything about it… if you asked will I ever go again…the answer is a BIG and definite YESH…hehe…it has been a good, fun and meaningful trip for me… and for that I would like to thanx the organizer, Zul, our guide, Tom and members of TAS namely, Eric, Azman, Yvonne and Erina…yah so now to end… I just have this to say: I have reached for the clouds and the sky, so now its time for me to go underwater and see the beauty of the ocean…hehe…get my hint…ok lah…shall not be so chim…means my next adventure will be to go diving liao…yah…think I will end now…and thanx for reading this entry which shall be titled: Kim, In The Fellowship of Mt Ophir…

Current Song: Welcome to My Life by Simple Plan

Current Mood: Satisfied and Happy