I got back yesterday on MH flight from Kota Kinabalu in the afternoon. It has been an exhausting couple of weeks since re-org and my spending time climbing mountains. I am going to start this with my Nuang trip quick recap.
The Facts (got it from here)
Gunung Nuang can be divided into a few major sections:
1. Entrance/Parking
2. “The long gruesome walk”
3. Rest point
4. Dam
5. “Lolo” camp
6. “Hut” camp
7. Mid-mountain push
8. Mid-mountain campsite – “Pacat” camp
9. Summit push
10. The “fake summit”
11. “Nuang” summit
The Climb
We met up at Saujana Hotel to park our cars at 6am. Alex bought Mc Donalds breakfast for all of us (4 of us) and we took Tony’s Myvi to Ulu Langat. Tony is a Chinese Australian and we trust him to drive us Malaysian to Hulu Langat. I thought that was quite funny LOL. Anyhow, we got there with minor issues by about 7:15am.
Colin reached there first. Elan came a bit later. Colin and Elan brought their wives! I know Gunung Nuang well and I thought it was a bad idea to bring wife along especially if they are not used to climbing. I was proven right 🙂 Continue reading.
After Alex did his pangsai at the restroom, we started walking up the trail. Time: 7:35am. The first part of the climb is the never ending road that lead us to the foot of Nuang. The walk up was easily 2 hours going uphills and downhills and uphills and downhills till I lost count. That’s why it’s called the ‘long gruesome walk‘
Once we reached at the foot of the mountain, we saw a bunch of school kids camping there. Time: 9:30am ish. By kids, I mean 16-17 year olds. They were warming up to start the climb as well. We pushed on until the Dam and continue straight up. Crossed few rivers and at one point I decided to take off my shoe and walk across. Icy cold water…lovely. While we were going up, few climbers overtook us. By the looks of it, they are ‘pro’, much unlike us office rats.
The climb was hard. I know this but my other friends did not. I took them (with exception of Tony) by surprise. By mid day we are still climbing up to Camp Pacat. Alex body started to shut down. He wanted to sleep and the only thing that’s moving him forward are power bars and me. I was behind him and encouraging him to move one step at a time. Colin and his wife starts to exchange some words (not sure if it’s arguments but it is sure not friendly words haha). Elan was moving up as well but his wife (Julia) was having issues as well. This was a test of how strong your relationships and your will are. People might got divorced on Gunung Nuang LOL. Time: 12pm ish.
The trail started to go 75Deg up and it’s getting harder and harder to push ourselves. Somehow, we finally reached fake summit at around 1pm. Based on our calculation, we have 4-5 hours to climb down before it gets dark. Myself, Tony and Kunalan decided to continue to the summit while the rest were too tired and decided to climb down before it gets dark.
The final push was interesting. Tony and myself started running at some point and Kunalan was trying to catch up. Must be the lunch we had at fake summit that provided us with the energy 🙂 We finally reached the top in 40min (thereabouts) and by then I was dead tired. The place looks different from 20 years ago. Alas, victory is still very sweet. By 2pm, we climbed down. We caught up with the group mid-mountain and walked together out. It was a difficult walk. Our muscles were dead. We were walking down by sheer will.
I was not looking at my watch anymore as I was tired. We probably reached the rest point at about 5pm. We took another 2 hours to walk the gruesome walk. The last half km was hell. We were tired, it is getting dark very fast.
We finally reached our cars at 7:30pm, after 12 hours of non stop trekking. It was an experience I would never want to repeat again. Seriously. The Monday after, I walked into office still with a limp due to sore muscle. My muscle required few days to recover……but the Mt Kinabalu climb was on Thusday!!! Alamak…
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