Bukit Tabur : Danger Zone at Second Rope

Update on posting

Bukit tabur : Danger Zone at Second Rope

is done on April 12, 2009, please go to http://bukittabur.blogspot.com for more information

Thankyou

Potential Dangers in Bukit Tabur

Would like to highlight some of our observations to fellow trekkers.

Location : at the First Rope of Bukit Tabur

1) Potential Danger No 1 : At the spot of the sand patch

There is a patch of sandy ground, mostly of loose sand at the edge of the rock, probably caused by erosion.



A trekker passed by to get down, stepping on the loose sand patch



The approximate size of the sand patch is 3 to 4 shoes put together side by side, if you stand here with both feet on the sand patch, once your body is off balance, it will be a fall of 100 to 150 meters down vertical drop/cliff.



Click on the picture for clearer view of the loose sand patch

2) Potential danger No 2 : The rope swing out while descending/ascending

Please take note of the boy in blue shirt, when he first started his descend, the rope is near to the left side of the rock.

As he came down, he must have lost his balance and swing to the right side of the rock.

The boy didn't find a footing to letch on his feet, he was hanging there holding the rope without support.

The picture was captured in a split of a second which I didn't prepared for, and thus the blurry image.

When the rope swings out, hang on to your dear life and try to manouver yourself towards the left side of the rock

Our rock climber Lau assisted him by giving the boy the red rope which he was working on to enhance the function of the existing rope.


and Peter helped him down further as he slowly get down here.


Having been involved in the rescue operation has left an impact in our life, personally I have heart can sometimes miss many beats, when I see trekkers coming down playfully, carelessly, gung-ho--ly ( if there is such a word for this ), too much of seeing this, I may get heart attack and die there.


Heard from fellow trekkers, there was an accident, the boy was holding the rope with one hand, and put up a peace sign on another for his friend to take picture.


and pooops, he fell down the cliff.( I have yet to confirm this )

3) Potential danger No 3 : carelessness

This is a set of pictures showing a playful teenager.


The teenager was swinging his body like a pendulum of a clock supporting his one hand on the rock & the other hand on the tree trunk.




Never, never, never ATTEMPT to do like what he did in this picture.

Life is precious than a few minutes of so call " fun ", be it to show off, be it to........ derive a kick or whatever....,whatever your idea of fun is,

Whoever, Whatever, anything you think goes.

Once accident happens, you kena !!!

We strongly advise any trekkers to observe common sense N safety measures to prevent untowards accident from happening.

It is perfectly alright to have fun in trekking, but it must be done with due concern to safety.

It's fine to get excitement on challenges

Quoting an opinion from an adventure guide, Taiping Goh
" The power of Mother Nature can never be under estimated. We as trekkers never CONQUERED any mountain. U could disagree me with this statement. My mentor Botak Chin only taught me 2 main things: (1) prepare for the worst, hope for the best (2)safety is the top priority."

and Quote fr Fongkahchun as below

fongkahchun86 wrote on Jun 3, '08 I guess everything boils down to individual trekking discipline. Be it the organiser and the trekkers themselves. As an organiser, we cannot always take things for granted. Even though some of us never has any incident or major accidents, safety can never be overlook. As a participating trekkers, it's also our discipline to be well-prepared and not to be stubborn especially to advises of someone who is very experience. 忠言逆耳，meaning good advises are usually unpleasant to the ears and hard to accept. So no matter how lazy we may be, how confident we are, there are always times for us to be well-behave so as not to spoil everyone's mood for the trek. Happy trekking!

Happy happy ya..................

Bukit Tabur : View from Several Spots

Views of Bukit Tabur from several spots nearby

1) This is a sight of Bukit Tabur West, Picture taken from Melawati Housing Estate

2) This is a view from Wangsa Maju LRT station

3) We enjoy trekking in Bukit Tabur ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukit_Tabur), the journey will start from the foothill behind a wall near the Klang Gate water dam gate.

when we first started trekking in Bukit Tabur West, we were as curious as anyone who trek up and wondered what the mother nature has to offer, we ventured out to trek Bukit Tabur East not long after there and has been regularly, for the past two years trekking there for laughter and fun, for exercise and friendship with like minded trekkers.


This is a picture of Bukit tabur West taken from Bukit Tabur east ( click on the picture for clearer view )



Melawati Hill is situated in Melawati neighbourhood, This pictures is taken from Melawati Hill. Genting Highland can be sighted from Melawati Hill and Bukit Tabur West & East on a clear day.


The accident happened on the day of October 12, 2008 changed our outlook in trekking in Bukit Tabur, not because we are unaware of the danger, but we come across many others that do not know the place and ignorant of the danger therein..

This is a picture of a portion of Bukit Tabur taken from Bukit Mas Apartment, Kuala Lumpur, which shows a different view and angle. We will try our best to describe how dangerous it can be if people are not familiar with the terrain of this place.


Click on the picture to have alook at the verticle cliff and drop as well as height of the place.


Accident Prone Site

It was awful when we were made face to face with the incident of accident and it spur us to do something, from within our hearts & abilities, in the hope that this sharing will be beneficial or perhaps save life.

After some discussions, among the trekking buddies, it is our heartfelt intention, to take this opportunity to create awareness on Bukit Tabur & some familiar path that we have been to many times, which we found it safe to thread on.

The information in the blogs are gathered through a period of two years,

most are our own trekking experiences,

some were our mistakes,

some are our observations

while some are common sense.........

May our sharing be beneficial to you.

DISCLAIMER


The information provided herein is purely from the experiences we gathered in trekking Bukit Tabur, we do not claim them as the only way, We WILL NOT BE and CANNOT BE held responsible for any mishaps and/or accidents whatsoever arising from your trekking here.

Bukit Tabur : Second Rope

This pictures show how Eric scale down from the second rope.
( Click on the picture for clearer view )

Second Rope Top View



This picture shows Eric coordinating to hold the grooves of the rock & the rope. (Top View)


Second Rope Side View Part 1

Second Rope Side View Part 2

DISCLAIMER

The information provided herein is purely from the experiences we gathered in trekking Bukit Tabur, we do not claim them as the only way, We WILL NOT BE and CANNOT BE held responsible for any mishaps and/or accidents whatsoever arising from your trekking here.

Bukit Tabur Back Trekking

Eric, is our best buddy in trekking.

If you have fainting spell, he has the ointment, if you are hungry, snacks are ever ready, if you are thirsty, he will check if you need a refill. The best name to sum him up, and we are not a bit boastful : he is the walking 7-Eleven, the one of a kind mobile convenient store of Bukit Tabur.

Well, give him a break, please do not take him for a ride

Aloysius keeps record of how many times he treks up Bukit Tabur, he said this is his habit since army days, keeping records of everything he does, since july 2007, to date, Aloysius has recorded going up Bukit Tabur 75 times.

It is excellent for a senior citizen of his age. well, you may say, may be he was an army before & has all the training, i guess partly it is true.

As for Eric, he doesn't keep record on the number of times he has been trekking up Bukit Tabur, we could say the number of times he treks in Bukit Tabur shall be at least 2 x 75 times the same period like that Aloysius trekked.

How the figure derived ? It has become his habit to trek twice a week, some Saturday if there is no long distance out-station trekking etc....; and if there is public holiday during the week, he will be there too.

I was thinking, if some good samaritan can sponsor Eric a good hammock, a rainproof tent, with windows to gaze the stars on the moonlit night, a make shift kitchen, i guess he would be most happy to live a nomad at the Bukit Tabur range, chooses his own spot of preference, trekking down to work during the day and trek back to his tent at night..........

Am I right to say this Eric ???

He would be the best candidate to have in this posting, share on trekking safely at some of the challenging spots.

let's get back to the main aim of this post, there are two ways to go back after trekking in Bukit Tabur

1) After finishing the entire range , with a break at carpet grass, you can trek downhill via the orchard.

OR

2) Do a back-trekking ( You start the journey via Klang Gate, reach the carpet grass, back-trekking from carpet grass to dam entrance again )

This picture shows Eric do a back-trekking at the cliff after the first rope.

Location


How Eric does his back trekking

( click on the picture for clearer view )

More pics later ...................

DISCLAIMER

The information provided herein is purely from the experiences we gathered in trekking Bukit Tabur, we do not claim them as the only way, We WILL NOT BE and CANNOT BE held responsible for any mishaps and/or accidents whatsoever arising from your trekking here.

Bukit Tabur, After The First Rope

The below few pictures are meant to help the new trekkers to Bukit Tabur to scale up the cliff, which is just after the " first rope "

Please see the location of this cliff on picture taken from Bukit Mas.


Click on picture for clearer view


Happy trekking & Be very CAREFUL too.

DISCLAIMER

The information provided herein is purely from the experiences we gathered in trekking Bukit Tabur, we do not claim them as the only way, We WILL NOT BE and CANNOT BE held responsible for any mishaps and/or accidents whatsoever arising from your trekking here.

Bukit Tabur : WaysTo Climb Down at First Rope

Climbing down the first cliff via Rope

The first cliff ( First Rope )
( For clearer view of the image, click on the picture)

There is a tree at the first rope & two pieces of ropes hanging down from the tree

We normally refer to the location as First Rope.

1) Assisting Children scaling down first cliff

On Using Robes

It would also be helpful that care is taken to ensure the ropes are hanging in between the two rocks, when one scale down the cliff using the rope,

Do not let the robes hang from the right side of the rock.
with body weight, the robe may swings like pendulum towards the right side of the rock of which below is the vertical cliff, it is very very dangerous.

BEST, & BE AWARE to move towards left rock at all times, away from the edge of the cliff at the right rock.

if at all, anybody loose balance and swings towards the right side of the right rock, such situation can happen, please remember never, never, never & never to let go of the rope.

Don't get panic & Hold on to the robe tight with all your might, be calm

and slowly get back to the left rock & manouver from there.

It will at least reduce the risk of imbalance which leads to falling down.


2) Scaling down first cliff without using robes
Mr. Lau (The Watermelon man)


2) Scaling down the cliff without using the rope
Mr. Chan (The Watermelon Sifu)

Mr Lau & Mr. Chan, with ice-chilled watermelon 6-8 Kg in their bag, scale down the cliff without the rope.


"Huah !! so heavy, can ah ???? "

"sup sup sooi le " will be his answer, " if you feel your bag is the weight that hinders you coming down, pass to another person la !! " just a straight answer from him.

( Travel light when you trek, is the best advise, take only the necessary, for Bukit Tabur 1 to 1.5 liter of water will be sufficient, and some light snacks just in case hunger pangs strike. )

If you happened to be there when they are around, not only will you get to eat the juicy watermelon, but also you will learn a tip of two about the skin beauty tips using watermelon skin & they will tell you too, when is the best season to eat this fruit.

Both of them will normally manouver themselves in between the two rocks at the " first rope " & edge themselves towards left side of the rock, without using rope to scale down to get themselves move on to the next stage.


3 Scaling down by edging entire body towards left rock.

This is most suitable for trekker with slender build.



4) Another clever way is to use backside, sit-slidding, sit- slidding down from the left rock

In summary
We notice, if trekker chooses to come down via first rope

1) Most seasoned trekker will try to avoid the vertical cliff at the right side of the rock which is estimated at 100 Meter to 150 meters verticle down.
2) Most trekker would manouver in all ways by edging to the left rock to move forward to their next destination.

DISCLAIMER

The information provided herein is purely from the experiences we gathered in trekking Bukit Tabur, we do not claim them as the only way, We WILL NOT BE and CANNOT BE held responsible for any mishaps and/or accidents whatsoever arising from your trekking here.