Descent off Ophir - A continuation
Early in the morning, just after 6, I was awoken to see an extraordinarily beautiful sight of stars all around our campsite. Normally, the closest place from Singapore that we can literally see a star-studded night would be in South-West China. Or else, maybe at the summit of a mountain just high enough to escape the clouds.
It was a very cold morning, and even though it was very cloudy, we were still treated to a blue sunrise. Not much of red, at the same time, just varying shades of blue.
I realise that it is so not easy to take photographs of a the stars as well as the very early parts of a sunrise. My light meter (for photography) kept giving me readings that would require really expensive equipment. The worst part was that as I didn't lug along a tripod to my already super heavy backpack, most of my handheld pictures actually came out blur, especially on the longer exposures. Quite wasted, but its a good learning experience.
We had breakfast and left the summit about an hour late. Which meant that we had less time to head down to a medium sized pool 2/3s the way down for a swim. The initial descent was quite scary, as it had rained the previous night, all the rocky surfaces higher up on the mountain was basically very slick and offered little grip. There is this one boulder that covers the top of the mountain, and to descend, we had to actually clamber over this 2 storey high boulder on a rotting ladder.
The ladder actually falls about a meter short of the top of the boulder. So towards the very end of the ladder, one has to grasp hold of whatever rocks there are at the summit, with only two feet on the higest leg of the ladder, attempting to balance with a heavy backpack. It was really scary because prior to reaching the summit campsite, I almost fell off this particular ladder just trying to get my footing on it. Not safe at all. The ladder is literally rotting away with rust. Somehow, I actually manged to reach the top of the boulder. Then I slipped while "celebrating" and fell down. Ouch.
Descending the uppermost parts of the mountain was purely by rope as most of the steps on the path had been totally eroded away. The little semblance of "a step" I could see was roughly a 70 degree small cut into the path with dropped 90 degrees. Not much to gain a footing or grip upon. The wet weather just made everything terribly muddy and hard to grasp.
Most of the time I was either hanging for dear life and doing little step backwards, in somewhat abseiling fashion. Other parts was spent on all fours grasping the roots of the trees and branches and making my way down very very slowly. I stepped onto a branch on several occasions and the whole thing just gave way. Like I said before, the way down is really not safe. And the fact that I could wrap my hand around an entire root of a tree is only a testament to the degree of soil erosion.
You have to see my shoes to believe them. Totally caked in black mud. Enough stress such that the sole wanted to give way.
As usual, when it came to some parts that were very tricky to climb, I usually ended up swinging left to right and slamming into all the granite surfaces around me. Too bad it had to be those really rough type of granite surfaces, so the grazing and lacerations were quite bad. Partly also due to the fact that it was easy to lose my footing on whatever "steps" were provided to prevent "simple harmonic motion".
As usual, when it came to the steep cliff that I almost dropped off at about a 1000 meters. They tied a rope around my waist and lowered me for that particular section of the descend. It was very scary when I look over my shoulder and I can see a thousand meters down. And I look down to see that the next firm ground is 50 meters or so as well. It felt like forever just going down that part of the mountain.
The later part of the descend was a little easier, as the gradient much more gentle. I just had to watch out for piles of leaves. Stepping on them would inevitably mean and instant ticket to land on my back. There was some parts where the mountain decided to play ticks on us, the steps would become so high that I had to once again lower myself on all fours just to cover that one step. It is highly advisable not to jump onto the next step as the risk of twisting an ankle is very high. And there were the parts where lowering myself that just one step was pretty painful. My poor thighs just shivered like 1/10th the journey down. Too much muscle stress I would say.
After about 3 hours down. We managed to reach a tiny stream to wash our super sweaty shirts, wash our faces and to wash our shoes! I would rather trek downhill in wet shoes than muddy ones! The stream looks very calm on the surface, but the current is strong enough to blast away all the mud caked into my soles. Plus its really cold, so I get to soak my tired feet in it for a while. We also collected water for drinking and after this proceeded to head further down.
After about 2 hours, we had actually managed to complete about 2/3s the journey down. This is were we come to an area that has plenty of people camping. Most amateur or beginner climbers usually come up to this place because there is a large clearing for camping as well as the fact that the water gushes pass this area quickly at the same time leaves a medium sized pool for swimming.
We dumped all our stuff on some rocks in the middle of the fast flowing water. Washed our hands and then had a simple lunch of bread. Food always tastes so good once I've been on a mountain 3 days. Then, we tried to dry our wet socks and shoes as the sun had already come up. And proceeded to have a SWIM! The water was really really cold. Cold to the extent that when I put my arm in, I can see all the goose pimples forming up on my skin. There are fishes in the pool as well. So it was a rather new experience. To swim and at the same time have fishes swiming around me. Feels like I'm in a giant aquarium of sorts.
After a good swim, banging my feet on the hidden rocks underwater and just cooling off. We decided to proceed off again. The funny thing was that when I wanted to move off the rocks. I slipped and fell! In front of about maybe 50 or 60 people. And it was really funny! After that, all the other campers gave way to me when moved off.
Along the way, I actually slipped quite badly and fell. And to break my fall I happened just to grab the next random branch next to me. Unfortunately, it was a branch totally covered in spikes. So the spikes just basically sliced through my fingers and caused quite a degree of bleeding. It was just to compound my other "major" injury at the start of the decend. I slipped at the very initial part of the descent whilst on the ropes and rope-burned my hands such that it caused bleeding on my palms.
It was fun, nevertheless. I accidentally touched a rubber tree on the way down and my hand was covered in its very very sticky sap. It was so sticky that basically all the dirt started to attch itself to my hand. I had to grate my palm on the rocks with water just to remove the sap. We took a very long detour down. Instead of heading down simply the way we came up. We decided to trek further to reach the very base of the waterfall. It was worth it. Even though by then I was very tired and was aching everywhere.
After reaching the base of the waterfall, it was just a very simple decent and we were out of the "climbers only zone" of the mountain. Back into the public domain that non-paying people could roam about and swim in. As it was the 1st of May, or Labour Day. The place was very packed! Extremely crowded! It was so crowded it felt weird. Because for the past three days it had just been the few of us around each other with nature. Now it felt as though it was a complete transition back into civilization.
As it was so crowded, it took quite a lot of time to queue for the public showers just to wash up. And a real shower never felt so good. I was quite silly to put the shampoo into my rope-burned hand to much suppressed howls of pain on my part in the shower. We just packed up our stuff after that, threw away all those that were unnecessary. The Ranger Office has a policy that we have to bring all our rubbish down and to show them before they will refund our climbing deposit. So with all the nonsense thrown away. Our load was really much lighter.
I never smiled so weirdly in my life before. Usually I give a dull bland face whenever I'm in the picture. Yet, I guess this occassion was a very exceptional exception. I look so dumb.
From Left to Right: Kalai, Teo, Me, Raymond, Jimmy and Uncle Yeo
After that, we had to walk about half an hour to the bus stop to take the bus to the nearest interchange. The bus we rode in happened to be one of those 1960s Mercedes Benz buses. Still going very strong after nearly ten million km on the road. A testimony to the marvels and feats of German Motor Engineering.
After hitting the interchange, it was about a 3 hour bus ride through the night back to Larkin. Just bordering Singapore. As it was labour day, the whole interchange was very crowded. Fully packed with plenty of ever kiasu Singaporeans trying to shove their way past the queues.
I guess malaysia shows its displeasure towards Singaporeans by closing down all except 3 or 4 immigration counters for about a thousand Singaporeans that can only be accessed by a tiny escalator on the second storey of their immigration checkpoint. They even turned off the air conditioning, for an air conditioned place. So it was really stuffy. Plus they were most probably purposely extremely slow. (How long does it take to stamp a passport?) I guess it only shows how corrupted and rotten the Madhatter's regime really is.
Singapore makes immigration as smooth as possible for Malaysian Passport holders on our side. Yet they can't even reciprocate.
The causeway, was similarly jammed. In almost typical Singaporean Fashion. I only managed to make it home slightly past 1a.m on Sunday. But it was a great experience after all that I had been through. Maybe the next climb will be Kinabalu. Or Gunung Tahan. Definitely realise the need to boost my standard of physical fitness.
I would like to add that I guess with all my falls and bumps of the journey. The real survivor in my backpack is really my Nikon Camera. I thought that I would just get spoilt with all the altitude changes, temperature changes (causing condensation), sand, dirt, water and shock from all those repeated falls. Remember that most of my falls had me land on my back, which meant that my camera did take a substantial amount of force. Yet everything's still in perfect working order. Not even a scratch on the body!
I'll definitely stick to Nikon Cameras in this lifetime. No Canon for me. A Photojournalist's dream indeed. And if everything goes right and I have enough money, I'll save up to buy that much coveted Nikon D2H. As much as I want the D2X that will be released nearing the Olympics this year. I feel that it will be too expensive. I'm counting a price drop with the introduction of the D2X plus an increase in my pay when I get promoted to help me buy that camera. Canon might really be better in technology. Yet, I guess Nikon makes a real effort to ensure that their cameras really last a lifetime. Just look at Nico's 1959 Nikon F. Still in perfect functioning order!
Early in the morning, just after 6, I was awoken to see an extraordinarily beautiful sight of stars all around our campsite. Normally, the closest place from Singapore that we can literally see a star-studded night would be in South-West China. Or else, maybe at the summit of a mountain just high enough to escape the clouds.
It was a very cold morning, and even though it was very cloudy, we were still treated to a blue sunrise. Not much of red, at the same time, just varying shades of blue.
I realise that it is so not easy to take photographs of a the stars as well as the very early parts of a sunrise. My light meter (for photography) kept giving me readings that would require really expensive equipment. The worst part was that as I didn't lug along a tripod to my already super heavy backpack, most of my handheld pictures actually came out blur, especially on the longer exposures. Quite wasted, but its a good learning experience.
We had breakfast and left the summit about an hour late. Which meant that we had less time to head down to a medium sized pool 2/3s the way down for a swim. The initial descent was quite scary, as it had rained the previous night, all the rocky surfaces higher up on the mountain was basically very slick and offered little grip. There is this one boulder that covers the top of the mountain, and to descend, we had to actually clamber over this 2 storey high boulder on a rotting ladder.
The ladder actually falls about a meter short of the top of the boulder. So towards the very end of the ladder, one has to grasp hold of whatever rocks there are at the summit, with only two feet on the higest leg of the ladder, attempting to balance with a heavy backpack. It was really scary because prior to reaching the summit campsite, I almost fell off this particular ladder just trying to get my footing on it. Not safe at all. The ladder is literally rotting away with rust. Somehow, I actually manged to reach the top of the boulder. Then I slipped while "celebrating" and fell down. Ouch.
Descending the uppermost parts of the mountain was purely by rope as most of the steps on the path had been totally eroded away. The little semblance of "a step" I could see was roughly a 70 degree small cut into the path with dropped 90 degrees. Not much to gain a footing or grip upon. The wet weather just made everything terribly muddy and hard to grasp.
Most of the time I was either hanging for dear life and doing little step backwards, in somewhat abseiling fashion. Other parts was spent on all fours grasping the roots of the trees and branches and making my way down very very slowly. I stepped onto a branch on several occasions and the whole thing just gave way. Like I said before, the way down is really not safe. And the fact that I could wrap my hand around an entire root of a tree is only a testament to the degree of soil erosion.
You have to see my shoes to believe them. Totally caked in black mud. Enough stress such that the sole wanted to give way.
As usual, when it came to some parts that were very tricky to climb, I usually ended up swinging left to right and slamming into all the granite surfaces around me. Too bad it had to be those really rough type of granite surfaces, so the grazing and lacerations were quite bad. Partly also due to the fact that it was easy to lose my footing on whatever "steps" were provided to prevent "simple harmonic motion".
As usual, when it came to the steep cliff that I almost dropped off at about a 1000 meters. They tied a rope around my waist and lowered me for that particular section of the descend. It was very scary when I look over my shoulder and I can see a thousand meters down. And I look down to see that the next firm ground is 50 meters or so as well. It felt like forever just going down that part of the mountain.
The later part of the descend was a little easier, as the gradient much more gentle. I just had to watch out for piles of leaves. Stepping on them would inevitably mean and instant ticket to land on my back. There was some parts where the mountain decided to play ticks on us, the steps would become so high that I had to once again lower myself on all fours just to cover that one step. It is highly advisable not to jump onto the next step as the risk of twisting an ankle is very high. And there were the parts where lowering myself that just one step was pretty painful. My poor thighs just shivered like 1/10th the journey down. Too much muscle stress I would say.
After about 3 hours down. We managed to reach a tiny stream to wash our super sweaty shirts, wash our faces and to wash our shoes! I would rather trek downhill in wet shoes than muddy ones! The stream looks very calm on the surface, but the current is strong enough to blast away all the mud caked into my soles. Plus its really cold, so I get to soak my tired feet in it for a while. We also collected water for drinking and after this proceeded to head further down.
After about 2 hours, we had actually managed to complete about 2/3s the journey down. This is were we come to an area that has plenty of people camping. Most amateur or beginner climbers usually come up to this place because there is a large clearing for camping as well as the fact that the water gushes pass this area quickly at the same time leaves a medium sized pool for swimming.
We dumped all our stuff on some rocks in the middle of the fast flowing water. Washed our hands and then had a simple lunch of bread. Food always tastes so good once I've been on a mountain 3 days. Then, we tried to dry our wet socks and shoes as the sun had already come up. And proceeded to have a SWIM! The water was really really cold. Cold to the extent that when I put my arm in, I can see all the goose pimples forming up on my skin. There are fishes in the pool as well. So it was a rather new experience. To swim and at the same time have fishes swiming around me. Feels like I'm in a giant aquarium of sorts.
After a good swim, banging my feet on the hidden rocks underwater and just cooling off. We decided to proceed off again. The funny thing was that when I wanted to move off the rocks. I slipped and fell! In front of about maybe 50 or 60 people. And it was really funny! After that, all the other campers gave way to me when moved off.
Along the way, I actually slipped quite badly and fell. And to break my fall I happened just to grab the next random branch next to me. Unfortunately, it was a branch totally covered in spikes. So the spikes just basically sliced through my fingers and caused quite a degree of bleeding. It was just to compound my other "major" injury at the start of the decend. I slipped at the very initial part of the descent whilst on the ropes and rope-burned my hands such that it caused bleeding on my palms.
It was fun, nevertheless. I accidentally touched a rubber tree on the way down and my hand was covered in its very very sticky sap. It was so sticky that basically all the dirt started to attch itself to my hand. I had to grate my palm on the rocks with water just to remove the sap. We took a very long detour down. Instead of heading down simply the way we came up. We decided to trek further to reach the very base of the waterfall. It was worth it. Even though by then I was very tired and was aching everywhere.
After reaching the base of the waterfall, it was just a very simple decent and we were out of the "climbers only zone" of the mountain. Back into the public domain that non-paying people could roam about and swim in. As it was the 1st of May, or Labour Day. The place was very packed! Extremely crowded! It was so crowded it felt weird. Because for the past three days it had just been the few of us around each other with nature. Now it felt as though it was a complete transition back into civilization.
As it was so crowded, it took quite a lot of time to queue for the public showers just to wash up. And a real shower never felt so good. I was quite silly to put the shampoo into my rope-burned hand to much suppressed howls of pain on my part in the shower. We just packed up our stuff after that, threw away all those that were unnecessary. The Ranger Office has a policy that we have to bring all our rubbish down and to show them before they will refund our climbing deposit. So with all the nonsense thrown away. Our load was really much lighter.
I never smiled so weirdly in my life before. Usually I give a dull bland face whenever I'm in the picture. Yet, I guess this occassion was a very exceptional exception. I look so dumb.
From Left to Right: Kalai, Teo, Me, Raymond, Jimmy and Uncle Yeo
After that, we had to walk about half an hour to the bus stop to take the bus to the nearest interchange. The bus we rode in happened to be one of those 1960s Mercedes Benz buses. Still going very strong after nearly ten million km on the road. A testimony to the marvels and feats of German Motor Engineering.
After hitting the interchange, it was about a 3 hour bus ride through the night back to Larkin. Just bordering Singapore. As it was labour day, the whole interchange was very crowded. Fully packed with plenty of ever kiasu Singaporeans trying to shove their way past the queues.
I guess malaysia shows its displeasure towards Singaporeans by closing down all except 3 or 4 immigration counters for about a thousand Singaporeans that can only be accessed by a tiny escalator on the second storey of their immigration checkpoint. They even turned off the air conditioning, for an air conditioned place. So it was really stuffy. Plus they were most probably purposely extremely slow. (How long does it take to stamp a passport?) I guess it only shows how corrupted and rotten the Madhatter's regime really is.
Singapore makes immigration as smooth as possible for Malaysian Passport holders on our side. Yet they can't even reciprocate.
The causeway, was similarly jammed. In almost typical Singaporean Fashion. I only managed to make it home slightly past 1a.m on Sunday. But it was a great experience after all that I had been through. Maybe the next climb will be Kinabalu. Or Gunung Tahan. Definitely realise the need to boost my standard of physical fitness.
I would like to add that I guess with all my falls and bumps of the journey. The real survivor in my backpack is really my Nikon Camera. I thought that I would just get spoilt with all the altitude changes, temperature changes (causing condensation), sand, dirt, water and shock from all those repeated falls. Remember that most of my falls had me land on my back, which meant that my camera did take a substantial amount of force. Yet everything's still in perfect working order. Not even a scratch on the body!
I'll definitely stick to Nikon Cameras in this lifetime. No Canon for me. A Photojournalist's dream indeed. And if everything goes right and I have enough money, I'll save up to buy that much coveted Nikon D2H. As much as I want the D2X that will be released nearing the Olympics this year. I feel that it will be too expensive. I'm counting a price drop with the introduction of the D2X plus an increase in my pay when I get promoted to help me buy that camera. Canon might really be better in technology. Yet, I guess Nikon makes a real effort to ensure that their cameras really last a lifetime. Just look at Nico's 1959 Nikon F. Still in perfect functioning order!
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