Gunung Tahan Day 4, Summit Day

June 26th, 2002 at 12:00am

The end of another long day. 10 hours of hiking. All but a distant memory now as I sit by our campsite by the river, enjoying the clean air and many strange sounds of the jungle. But my knees remember!

Yes it was a lot of work to get here. Another 6am wake-up call (well, 6:30 actually; I didn’t hear my alarm because I was wearing ear plugs to sound out JC’s snoring) and we were on the trail at 7:30am.

It was a steady 3.5-hour climb to the summit from our campsite, with amazing views of the Titi Wangsa mountain range. We went back and forth between an alpine-like environment and the thick, lush, green jungle which I was surprised to see up at such a high elevation. Mind you, the rainforest is so thick here, that even though there are elephants, tigers, wild pigs, and tophairs running about, no one can even catch a glimpse of them through the dense forest. It’s not like the plains of Africa where you can sit at a restaurant in the middle of the park and watch the animals come to the river at sunset. It is a bit daunting to know there are tigers running free around here, but hey, if they don’t bother me then I’m happy.

Anyway, we went up and up until we couldn’t go any higher and we finally reached the summit of Gunung Tahan (2187 meters, over 7,000 feet) at about 11am. It was just the 3 of us at the top – myself, JC, and Ubai, our guide. The views really weren’t that great because we had some clouds and mist rolling through, but it still felt great to be there! We took all our summit photos (and I still can’t believe it, but I left my American Flag back at the park headquarters with my other stuff), and then we rested on the top for about an hour.

From 2187 meters we went down, down, down for almost 6 hours to our current elevation of 750 meters. So in one day we went 787 meters up and 1437 down. That’s a lot of hammering on the knees! But I felt strong and focused all day, what a great feeling.

From here it’s only a 3-hour hike out but since we got here at 5:30pm and it was getting dark soon, we’re going to do that bit tomorrow.

At this campsite by the way, there are almost NO bees!

So it feels good to have the worst behind us and know that we will have an easier day tomorrow. Looking forward to a shower when we get back to civilization.

Shes on a mission

The summit!

Enjoying the last views before heading down…

Entry Filed under: Hiking/Trekking,Malaysia,Taman Negara