It was a plan made to wait for too long. I had always wanted to climb Mount Ledang ever since I moved to KL about two and half years ago. I had been looking forward to doing it but I never got the chance until Muar Cross Country Half Marathon came about. It was a weekend trip not to be wasted a bit. I would climb Mount Ledang and run a Half Marathon the very next day. I know it was a bit overambitious but I always believed in the idea that ‘if not now, then when?’. Heh.
All the while I thought booking a date to climb Mount Ledang would be very fussy. The thought of it alone was already a turn off. Then, after my asking around had proved to be futile, I made a phone call to Johor National Parks Corporation whose contact number I had searched online and voila! A single phone call and off to Ledang I went!
Mount Ledang had proved to be so easy to find. It was a one way straight from Tangkak town except at the last junction where you’d see a brown signboard welcoming you to one of the most visited national parks in the country.
Quite expectedly, we were the very last group to arrive for the check-in registration that day. We had to collect our race pack in Muar before dashing over to the mountain which was about 45 minutes drive away.
After paying all the necessary fees including the RM50 for rubbish deposit as they called it, we were all set to go. We were asked to declare every single piece of things that we wanted to bring including toiletries and even the clothes that we had on (I didn’t declare my underwear though. Shhhh! LOL)
They want to make sure that not a single piece of non-organic material is left to be a thorn to the nature at Mount Ledang. Knowing so well about the littering habit among Malaysian people, I would say it was actually a very good move.
We started up the mountain at 11 am when everybody else had left 3 hours earlier. Being the very last group to depart means most of the guides didn’t want to take us on – worrying that they’d be made to trek up until night. Thanks God a Good Samaritan in the form of Andek came to our rescue.
It turned out that he was one of the most experienced guides at Mount Ledang and probably one of the fittest. He told us how he represented the company (or probably department) in a recent climbathon at Mount Ledang which was joined in by a number of international participants. He told us how a participant from Sabah managed to grab the second place and reiterated that we as Sabahans should be proud it. LOLz.
He was so eager to tell us about the three years he had spent in Sandakan when he was still in the army. He couldn’t stop talking about the abundance of seafood and how cheap they were and all. He even tipped us with some climbing and breathing techniques which I eagerly practiced for myself but failed quite miserably. LOLz
Of all the things that he was proud of in his 10 years of experience as a guide to Mount Ledang (apart from being filmed on TV3’s Misteri Nusantara), he was most proud of one thing – that he managed to bring a 120-kg woman up to the top of Mount Ledang – and down.
He said it was one experience that he’d never forget, something that had tested his patience as a guide to the max. He said he remembered how even all her friends had given up on her because even a single step would take her like forever to make.
He recalled how the lady wouldn’t complain. She just kept taking one step after another no matter how small it was. The joy that she shared with him and the group when she finally made it to the peak was beyond words. She has since held the record as the heaviest climber to have ever set foot on top of Mount Ledang.
Point is, if a woman could bring the whole of her 120 kgs up to the peak of Mount Ledang, why couldn’t you? 😛
Good thing about Mount Ledang is the forest which is still very much virgin at least by the look of it. Unlike the forest at Mount Trus Madi which was ripped off to bits in the past, the one at Mount Ledang still offers the rare sight of giant trees whose ages might date back to Parameswara time.
Mount Ledang is said to be the 6th most difficult mountain to climb in the country so I didn’t go there expecting a cat walk all the way up to the peak. The trail was very well maintained which reminded me of the trail at Mount Kinabalu where all you have to worry about is your stamina.
But then, the last few hundred meters before the peak had proved to be quite challenging. We were made to climb over boulders, up against rocks and even had a taste of wall-climbing. There was one section of the trail where we had to climb through a cave so climbing Mount Ledang turned out to be such an amazing experience.
I wouldn’t say the trail was as difficult as the one at The Pinnacles in Mulu which is still the toughest among all the hiking trails that I’d ever been on so far, but still the trail at Mount Ledang is one that needs a climber to be extra careful. Thanks God they had provided iron ladder where necessary.
It was good to be on top of a mountain again. The view was breath-taking although it could have been better if not for the damn haze from neighboring country. I don’t know why but the haze really knows how to frustrate me by coming at a time when I least want it to.
After doing rounds and rounds of camwhoring (heh) and spreading out a simple picnic lunch for us all to indulge over, we descended back to the base with such a victorious joy. We had to go quite fast this time knowing that dusk was nearing fast.
I thought we were going slowly enough until we caught up with a large group of youngsters which I later learned were students from a local university. Some of them seemed so struggling in making their pace.
Their facial expressions showed how exhausted they were. They couldn’t even bring themselves to responding to our friendly hellos. It was so evident to the fact that stamina is something that you earn, not something that you were born with. And it doesn’t really age. Heh.
We arrived back at the base with an ample time before night took over. After declaring all the things that we had brought to the mountain, we bade farewell to Andek and returned to Muar for another mission to accomplish – to run at Muar Cross Country Half Marathon 2013.
I was like – My gawd! What the hell am I doing? 😀
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