Bukit Tabur East Side Pictures

I've not been blogging recently. I guess work got the best of me, and laziness got the rest of it. A while back, I did find the path to East Side Bukit Tabur, and it was equally interesting and challenging. I can't really give full details, cause I dont think I have the time to be descriptive, but I managed to take some pictures on the way up. And East Side Tabur was my last silly adventures with Mark, before he left to continue his studies. Now I'm without a friend to go on my Indiana Jones adventures.

To go to Bukit Tabur East Side, we followed the water pipes coming from the dam. Right towards the end, there was a path going up to what is known to be East side of Bukit Tabur. Anyways, the hike up was not that long, its just very steep, and tiring. We finally reached the first peak of the East Side and managed to get a different view of the Dam, from the East Side, you will have a better view of the overall Klang Gate Dam.

We continued further, and had some rest at a shady area before continuing our journey towards the next peak. From there on, the climb was less steep, but the path seems to be harder to find and sometimes dissappear. At times we were just taking path by just gut feeling.

This was indeed the scariest part of East Side Bukit Tabur, you really have to be careful here, the ridge is narrow and a wrong move can have you falling to your doom; if you happened to stumble on either sides.

Some of the rocks here would make a really cool place for trad climbing. If only I have the money to buy my own crabs, I would have climbed the rocks and find me some beautiful crystals.

As we go on further, quartz crystals started to appear. I'm pretty sure, if we went further, it would be much
more abundant, but that would mean we have to rock climb, which we didn't have the gear yet. Maybe next year we will eventually reach the furthest peak and trad climb to the top. I hope nobody breaks the crystals in
an attempt to bring it back as a souvenir. It took thousands of years to make those pieces of quartz crystals.
Just take a picture please...dont be selfish, let others enjoy nature's beauty too.

Even though the path seems to be much more elucid as we went on, as expected, we were not the first people to come here. As evidence to this, we found a very steep hill, almost vertical that already had ropes all the way to the top. The ropes made us more eager to continue our journey, the only thing that was discouraging us at that time was how the ropes looked a bit brittle. We took our chances anyways, and even though it looked brittle, the ropes was strong enough to support our weights.

The climb up using the ropes are necessary due to the sharp steep uphill route, without it, a mistake would make you fall about 60-70 meters down, and only slowing down when you hit a couple of hard quartz rocks along the way. If you intend to keep your bones intact, and your face the way it looks like now, I suggest be very careful here.

Furthermore, like I said, its a long climb up a sharp steep hill, about 60-70 meters, and with the hot sun, fear factor and tired legs, it can be very challenging. So make sure you are ready for the physical stress if you attempt to go up this route.

Finally, we reach a point where we can no longer continue. We tried to find a path down, but the picture
above explains it all. Above is a picture looking downwards, and the closest path was that tiny piece of
standing rock. Mark actually suggested that we climb down a little and jump on top of the rock in the middle and climb down the rock to continue our journey, but I think I've grown old and lost a lot of my guts due to aging. What if we got stuck there, there was no easy way up or down without breaking a bone or two.

Next time with the proper gear, we intend to continue to the other peaks of East Side Bukit Tabur. Its either we climb down with a rope, doing some rappelling, and continue the path, or find a new path towards the 3 lonely peaks that we didn't managed to climb. It was a bit of a disappointment, but a disappointment that won't last long. Someday, sometime, we will finish this route towards the end.

Going back down was not an interesting adventure, we had to back track, the same way we came up. So we walked back and going down the steep route with the ropes again. Being all confident towards the end of the steep route with the ropes, i jumped and slipped down a rock. I fell with my back facing the rocks and I was sliding on sharp rocks. Thank god I managed to stop myself from falling all the way down. It was painful as the sharp rocks scrape my back like a bunch of forks poking on my back, but I couldn't imagine slipping all the way towards the edge of the rock and falling down the hill. It would be a long drop that would allow me to think about my whole life events before hitting the ground and die. Atleast a scar on my back is not as bad as having my head bashed into the ground....