Gunung Bunga Buah 2 May 2009

Five of us decided to climb G Bunga Buah with the hope of seeing less "dancing queens" given the recent dry spell. When we started the hike at 9.15 a.m. the sky was overcast. Not a good sign. But we decided to push on and hoped for the best.
It took us about 20 minutes to scale the vertical slope from the vegetable patch to the old Genting tar road and another 15 minutes to trek up the tar road to the Y-junction where we took the left turning. Starting from here, we raced through the wet/damp trail (rained the previous night?) and stopping occasionally to apply salt to"murder" the blood suckers somersaulting up our pants. We arrived at the foothill (or the actual trail head) at 10.40 a.m. and the false peak (or the granite outcrop) at 12.10 a.m. After our fill, we proceeded on and hit the peak an hour later at 1.50 p.m.

We cut our time short at the 'dirty' peak after noting "dancing queens" at the exposed peak area! Half-way downhill, the rain came and as expected we had to "battle" with the blood suckers again on the way out to the old Genting tar road.

NB: I was the only lucky one who did not bear any "battle" scars against the blood suckers.Throughout the trek I saw only one leech limping its way up my pants. However, not the same could be described for the rest of the group who received a total of 9 bites after fencing off numerous blood suckers.

The photos for the last trip can be viewed at http://happytrekker.shutterfly.com/pictures/5550.

Gunung Bunga Buah 28 Sep 2008

At 7 a.m. we gathered at the BHP station opposite Batu Caves Giant Hypermarket to carpool to Goh Tong Jaya (“GTJ”), our destination for our hike to Gunung Bunga Buah. The 50km drive to GTJ took about 30 minutes from the Karak Toll (RM5 per car). More groups started to converge at GTJ and the actual trek only started at 9 a.m. after everyone had their morning breakfast.

The access road to the track is a wide side lane located between Restoran Kium Bee and Restoran Makan Laut Gohtong Jaya. The side lane is sandwiched between a fairly large vegetable patch on the left and Kolej Antarabangsa Genting Inti on the right. There is also ample space along the side lane to park cars.

Starting from here (alt 940m), we headed towards a dirt road which trails off to the left near the far end of the lane. After 3 minutes of walking, we had to turn right into another smaller vegetable farm which is situated at the base of a hill slope. The trail head is clearly visible on the hill slope. We took about 25 minutes to scale up the steep gradient to a disused tar road situated at 1055 m altitude (net elevation of 115m). Taking the left turn, we walked about 10 minutes before arriving at Y-junction. Here we took the left turn. Now the tar road, which was totally covered by grass and thick under growth, looked more like a trail only.

It took us about an hour to trek this stretch of leech infested tar trail road before we arrived (at 10.30 a.m.) at the start of the hill trail (1140m alt). The entrance of the hill trail is situated on the right side of the tar trail road. Here, everyone took time to “deleech” and then quickly climbed up the hill trail. Within 5 minutes of climbing, we started to descend downhill for 10 minutes to 1065m elevation before ascending again. At 11.30 a.m. after 45 minutes of climbing we hit the false peak (ala Tabur) at 1245 m altitude.

After a quick photography session, we proceeded to the summit at 11.45 a.m. The uphill trek to reach the summit, sitting at 1430m altitude, took us 45 minutes.

In summary, it took us 25 minutes to scale the initial vertical slope, 1 hour to trek the leech infested trail, 1 hour to reach the false peak and another 45 minutes to hit the summit.

Tips: Bring water 1.5 litre, poncho and energy food
Anti leech strategy (for both ground and bush leeches)
(a) Wear shoes treated with tobacco/salt water;
(b) Wear socks presoaked in tobacco/salt water;
(c) Wear long sleeve shirts & pants presoaked in tobacco/salt water; and
(d) Tuck long pants into the socks.

For the photographs, please refer to http://happytrekker.shutterfly.com/pictures/4355.