Gunung Ophir (Y2013 MTT)
BASIC INFORMATION
Trek: Y2013 MTT
Date: 25 - 26 February 2013
Location: Gunung Ophir, Johor, Malaysia
Elevation: 1,276m
Duration: 1D
BRIEF ITINERARY
Day 1
Transport to base of Gunung Ledang
Day 2
Day Trek up Gunung Ledang
Transport back to SG
On 25th Feb, the first weekday of recess week, everyone flocked to the SR in SIS @0930hr to meet before the long awaited trek to Ophir. It was really heartening to see a number of ‘old birds’ finding time to join the freshies in this trek. Although we were only supposed to set off from SMU at noon, everyone met earlier in order to split into their respective groups and proceed to nearby supermarkets to procure the food they wanted for their dinner at night (field cooking FTW!!). Once dinner was bought (not yet cooked though), some of us headed to Bugis for lunch. Carbo load!!
After lunch was eaten, everyone gathered back at the SR for some last minute packing and redistribution of stuff, especially the food items recently bought for dinner. At slightly after noon, we loaded ourselves and our stuff into 2 vans and officially started on our journey to Ophir
It was a rather uneventful 4 hour journey from SMU to Ophir. There was some chatter as some of us eagerly shared our various stories, while some of us chose to catch some sleep. We did stop about halfway through the journey to grab a quick bite and to visit the Malaysian loos.
Just as we were approaching Gunung Ledang Resort, the place where we were going to set up camp for the night and start our trek the next morning, it started to rain cats and dogs. Fortunately for us, the rain lightened up and eventually stopped after we got there. The rain made us reconsider using the campsite we had originally planned to pitch our tents as the slope leading down to it was steep and became very slippery. Instead, with the approval of the park ranger office, we decided to set up our tents at the open spaces on the first floor of a dormitory there.
After Yuhang had briefly gone through a quick session to teach everyone how to use ropes and harnesses should the need arise the following day, everyone quickly set up their tents we were all hungry and could not wait to cook our own dinners. I must say that dinner was extremely creative! We had a wide variety of dishes ranging from instant noodles, to claypot rice and even sambal kang kong fried in mess tins! Clean up after dinner was a bitch though. Especially for group 1 who attempted to fry too many things and that resulted in a very black mess tin which they eventually gave up on. Following dinner, we had a quick intro/stir shit session before splitting into two groups. One went on to HTHT, while the other basically got their minds blown by one another at a card game called The Resistance: Avalon.
The next day, everyone took their time to crawl out of their tents and yawn before finally starting on their breakfast. Some groups loved field cooking so much that they continued cooking not only their breakfast, but even potatoes to eat for lunch while up on the mountain. By 0745hr, we were mostly ready to go and started to make our way down to the park ranger’s office for a short briefing before commencing on our trek. It was not all smooth sailing and bliss though. Unfortunately, Cindy hurt her lower back just after we alighted from the van the day before and did not manage to recover in time to trek. Chelsea then volunteered to accompany Cindy at the foot of Ophir and cheer the team on from there. *applause* for Chels! (:
Anyway, we officially started on our trek at 0815hr on 26th Feb 2013 and the first thing we saw was a flight of seemingly never ending stairs. From here on, I suppose it would be better to describe the trek with pictures rather than words as my vocab would not do justice to the majestic wonders of Ophir
Entrance to Gua Kambing (Goat Cave)
Jeanette attempts Batu Hampar
Manly May
We reached the summit at almost 1430hr which was slightly behind schedule. Nonetheless, standing up at 1276m and overlooking everything else below was such a surreal feeling, especially after toiling through the ridiculous obstacles such as the marble slab and KFC as shown above. The view was slightly obscured though, thanks to a number of clouds that gathered above and around us. At least we still managed to take some awesome shots!
Following that, we began our descent down. Like what someone (I think it is Zephan, or maybe Neo) told me, the real summit is at the bottom. Going down was rather tricky with the steep slopes and all, hence our progress slowed considerably. However that changed the moment it started to pour! We were not even halfway down when we were suddenly pelted by heavy rain in our faces. But that only caused us to step up our pace on the way down and to shorten our breaks. I think that if not for the rain, we might have been so much further behind schedule.
It seemed as though the weather was playing some sort of a game with us as the rain stopped as abruptly as it had started after we finally got down. At least it stopped and we could use the shower facilities to wash up before heading back home! As per our trip to Ophir, we stopped halfway for a quick bite (dinner) and it was slightly past 2300hr when we all finally reached school again.
Looking back, it was a rather strenuous trek since we climbed up all 1276m of Ophir and went back down in a day. But kudos to everyone who went for the trek! We conquered Ophir! YAY!! (:
Lastly, this trek would not have been possible without my dearest org comm who managed to function ever so well, and Wei Jie our awesome trek advisor, as stated in the documents, who helped point all of us in the right direction when we needed help. Of course we cannot forget the enthusiastic participants who brought so much life into the trek, singing songs, sharing stories, bitching about each other and many many more. Hope to see everyone at trek again! Till then! (:
Written by: Ng Ming Xiang, Trek IC
