Showing posts with label gunung repin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gunung repin. Show all posts

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Bukit Repin and Gunung Lentang Legong – A Torture To Remember


the scratches mark at my arm (degil
taknak pakai long sleeve)

Bukit Repin located at Janda Baik Pahang standing 1341 meters and Gunung Lentang Legong also in Janda Baik standing at 1360 meters. My previous Bukit Repin journey is here.

The GPX file is here : gpx file (taken from wikiloc)

Our mission this time around to conquer 3 mountains at one go. Mission number one, climbing Bukit Repin then proceed to Bukit Lentang Legong (mission two) subsequently to Gunung Nuang (mission three). Total journey estimated 20km within 20 hours.

Photo credit : Dendang

Meanwhile, I have my own mission whereby hiking Bukit Repin and Lentang Legong only.
Initially we have 5 or 6 of crazy hikers, then added up to a total 11 hikers with a mixture of conventional runners, ultra runners and podium winners. The team lead by team leader En Khalil whom I had hiked before climbing mount Tahan daypack years back.

Tagging along are Zulfazli (ijoi), Asyraf Ghazali (Acap) and Saifuddin Ramli (Dendang) which were among known podium runners/hikers.

The rest of the team are En Nosly (Wak), Elle Nash, Khairul ezwan, Muhd Ezwan and Norsharina who had the courage to follow (or being forced to follow !)

Wak and Elle admiring the beauty of forest flower power
photo credit : dendang

Caution!
The Lentang Legong route are treacherous and haven’t being used for a long time. We will un-chartered this trail route and equip it with proper trail mark – lead by our trail marker master – En ijoi.

Few machete or ‘Parang’ needed to re-open the trail thus a good and strong pair of hand with inter-exchangeable ‘swinging’ duty among team members are an added advantage.

Need to be physically fit like crazy, able to carry medium weight with food and drinks ration among others basic survival and basic first aid kit. Few of us also brought cooking stove, ground and fly sheet just in case things don’t go in our way for some reason.

leeches hunter at Repin's Peak

The most important thing in this journey is the Navigation. Most of us have navigator wrist watches but only some of us knew how to properly translate it to a useful detail. This job is being handled by our team leader, En Khalil with the assistance of Acap, dendang and wan. They will be mostly in front of us.

Strategy

Logistics
In view that we will be starting at Bukit Repin trailhead and end up at Nuang via janda Baik trailhead, we parked 2 cars at one point and the rest, at the other point - to take care of the logistics arrangement.

Navigation
As I mentioned earlier, the Navigation is the most crucial aspect in the whole journey, thus, it will be based on suunto movescount route pre-installed in suunto device with added navigation by handheld device of En Khalil’s (‘view ranger’ – a Gps device apps installed in handphone).

Analysis had been done prior, for proper trail route, topo map, weather condition, what to expect and how to manage every condition in case of emergency.

the parang in action
Photo credit : dendang

Cut-off time
Time Management is also plays important role whereby each point of destination need to be measured – how long it takes to reach, how long we supposed to rest and cut-off time to turn back at some point.

Head lights
One of the important device as we will be walking in wee hours in the morning and estimated completion around 1.00am. A good head lights are important – Petzl nao (high end) or Fenix (medium end) may assist you in the darkness. Please do be mindful of your battery life as most conventional battery will only last around 4-5 hours burning time. Getting your battery where the slot that you can easily reach is the best strategy to change your battery in a nick of time.

Fire-cracker
This is important as to shock audio level with excessive explosion sound – it will scare away our number one enemy – WILD BEAST.

The Journey
We started at 6.00am from Bukit Repin trail head heading towards Bukit Repin peak – 5.76km. We reached there within 3 hours. A slow ascending route at the beginning to a hardcore straight up nearly to the end. The leeches are everywhere! Equipped yourselves with leech socks and insect repellent.
We rested around 30 minutes here and proceeded to Gunung Lentang Legong – around 3km away. This was where it became tougher. The route had been covered by re-grown bushes and trees with unclear trail and trail marker.
Duration, distance and time of the day

Kindly take note that from Puncak Bukit Repin there are 2 exits – the one we came from and another to Lentang Legong. Another trail route to Kemensah (pondok repin) is at one of the junction not much further down where we came from Repin Janda Baik.

Yes, finally at Lentang Legong 
total journey so far : 8.09km

Our move became very slow here as few of our team member cutting tree branches in front while navigating to the correct path. We reached Lentang Legong around 4 hours, the time was 2.10pm. Not much time wasted here. We proceeded to Simpang Nuang – Repin – expected few kilometres away.
The “parang’ action continues until dark. At one point we seems lost, this was the part where En Khalil and the team gear up figuring out how to get back to the trail path and we succeeded! The night walk continues like forever. Looking at my watch, its 8.00pm, then 11pm, then 12am…..we are still in the wild jungle!

At 12.00am, we reached the Nuang – Repin junction. Finally! En Khalil and few others decided to proceed to Nuang Peak another 0.92km or so while others decided to go back to Janda Baik. En Khalil’s team will catch up with us later on the way back.

Them in Nuang Peak with ijoi falling asleep
Photo Credit : Acap

We have another 6km to reach Janda Baik (Nuang) trailhead. It was the longest night ever! We reached Chemperoh Waterfall few hours later and suddenly En Khalil’s team emerged from the darkness! They only took 20 – 30 minutes from Simpang Nuang – Repin to Nuang Peak. Then, fast walk – run to us with a staggering amount of speed. Yes, this wasn’t my game lah.

photo credit : either dendang or khalil

We continued to Nuang Janda Baik trailhead few hours later and finished around 3.00am. We ended the journey with tears and smile in our face…haha. The total journey is 25.5km within 21 hours (Parking Janda Baik to Bukit Repin – Gunung Lentang Legong – Parking Nuang Janda Baik). En Khalil’s route may have extra 2km plus for his crazy effort to Nuang Peak.

Special shout out to En Khalil for being a tremendous leader and the rest of the team who had assisted him in achieving the same goal and to those who braved enough to take the challenge.
completed in 21 hours, 18km
(It's actually 25.5km according to most navigation devices within team members, maybe mine need to calibrate)

Complete log based on En Khalil's data :

Parking Bukit Repin to Bukit Repin Peak
Time start : 6.00am
Distance : 5.6km
Time Taken : 3 hours

Bukit Repin Peak to Lentang Legong Peak
Distance from Bukit Repin peak to Lentang Legong Peak : 4.1km
Time Taken : 5 hours
Time of the day : 2.00pm

Lentang Legong Peak to Simpang Nuang-Repin - 10km
Time Taken : 10 hours
Time of the day : 12.00am

Simpang Nuang - Repin to Nuang Janda Baik Trailhead - 6km
Time Taken : 3 hours
Time of the day : 3.00am

* Nuang - Repin Junction to Nuang Peak - 920 meters
   Time taken : 36 minutes

Gunung Lentang Legong is NOT for the faint hearted hikers as the route is confusing and risk of being lost is extremely high without proper guide and navigation device (to my opinion).

Nevertheless, it was a great hike, great company and great experience.

Stay tune for route GPX file

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Bukit Repin via Janda Baik





Bukit Repin situated at Janda Baik, Pahang. As far as I know there are 2 mountains via Janda Baik i.e Gunung Nuang and Bukit Repin.

Bukit Repin is actually a mountain category as it stand 1,300 meters (according to my Suunto ambit 2)

What to Expect on Climbing Bukit Repin
- The distance is approximately 4.29km
- flat and easy walk few kilometers at the beginning and steep climb last few kilometers towards the peak
- will be passing through rubber plantation, orang asli settlement and 4 to 5 river crossings
- the trail is clear, but be careful to follow correct path as there are many trails leading elsewhere
- I will try to give the best guide for others not to get lost
- be mindful of leeches especially towards the summit – get ready for a few bites (a mossy guards spray or leech socks would help)

the ascending/descending and distance

Accommodation
There are plenty of homestay and small hut to be rented out as Janda Baik is known as a get-away destinations.

Transportation
There will be no public transport to here. You may need to use own transport.

Temperature
Between 25 to 28 degree in the morning. Nothing to be alarmed.

Eating Place
There will be plenty of Malay restaurant at the road side up to the small town of Janda Baik – few kilometres from the trail head.
 I suggest you get your food on or before here.
Breakfast and lunch are no problems but dinner may be very limited choice.
Another point to have your meals is at Genting Sempah rest area – more than 10km away.

Getting there
There are 2 ways of conquering Bukit Repin, first thru Kemensah (zoo negara, KL) and another is thru Janda Baik.
Since this is our first time and we decided to enter thru Janda Baik.
We park here (gps coordinate : 3.305605, 101.875539)


About 100 meters we reached the entrance which is a river crossing. There will be no direction to Bukit Repin at our starting location
No signboard and no trail marker.

Phone Signal
There will be few points of having phone signal but I’m pretty sure that a strong signal is presence at the peak.

Navigation Assistance
My old trustworthy suunto ambit 2 with routes direction pre-loaded before the hike more or less helped me with this climb.
Wak Nosly (good old friend) also had his ambit 3 peak with the same route.
This assurance will prevent us from getting lost

Trail Condition
The trail was easy and flat at the beginning. Passing through rubber tree plantation, secondary jungle and orang asli settlement.
(2 houses only). The trail is clear with tyre tracks and we believe it is being used for mobility for the orang asli.

There will be proper trail markers leading to the summit when you get more deeper in the jungle.

At a later stage of the trail, it will become steeper and hard climb. The trail is slippery. It took us hours to reach the peak.

Summit
The summit is somehow a small area surrounded by trees. The ground is dark in colour and covered by fallen leaves.
There is one section on the left where you can view the valley below, if it is not covered by fog.

If you look carefully, you may find trail markers leading to another section of the mountain – ‘Pondok’ and eventually heading towards Kemensah.
I heard the distance is 3 kilometres to Pondok itself.

I hope that somebody will re-open the trail route to Pondok – Kemensah, it will be more nearer to KL.

Going Back
Heading down from the summit was a very straight forward. Just use back the same trail.
I would suggest to use extra caution as the trail is very slippery and you may fall down.
Use a proper trail shoes, glove-to hang on to something and a slow pace ascending – it will reduce the risk of injuring yourselves.

We reached down around 2 hours plus.

Recommendation
Bukit Repin maybe considered a leisure hike as in comparison, it is more or less climbing Bukit Kutu.
Its manageable and doable. Of course, hikers with low fitness level may find it a bit difficult and may take longer time to reach the top. Don’t give up.

Always hike with a buddy, recommended more than 3 persons ya.

Walk through

Around the parking area



 We will be heading towards this road






Heading to the Entrance

We reached this house, around 100 meters from parking. Just go straight 

At the back of the house, there is a fork road. Please turn on your right. 

The green fence on the right is the house fence  

We reached our first river crossing. This is the entrance

Rubber plantation 

just go straight 

2nd river crossing 

Orang asli settlement 



The fork trail, close up - please turn left 

the fork trail from a distance 


another fork trail - take your left


This is on our way back

the popular tree 


distance and time taken 


 Time of the day

 At the other side of the peak


On our way back



We started descending at 11.20am. Reached the parking around 1.30pm

Western Food Lunch



We saw this western outlet called Nero Bianco Deli

Wak with his new fondly feline friend