Gunung Ledang, AKA Mount Ophir, is located Northwest of Johor close to Malacca. It stands at 1276M tall, making it the highest peak in Johor and also the 69th highest mountain in Malaysia! Its a very popular Mountain to trek for both Malaysians and Singaporeans due to it being a 1-day hike, often visited by climbers in preparation for more challenging climbs. The terrain here is that of dense rainforest with sprawling roots and muddy trails. Some of the climb involved scaling up > 45-degree rock faces with fixed ropes and climbing up more than 20 ladders. Doable for a beginner climber in good physical shape, but it will still pose a big challenge for first-timers.
The full hike takes about 10hrs on average and must begin at 8am latest. Coming from Singapore, we needed a 2.5hr drive just to arrive at the trailhead. Hence, we drove in the night before and rented a chalet to stay the night before the climb which cost about 220RM. The chalet was pretty cosy, had basic amenities like beds, showers, toilet, sofa, and boiler. It had a common living area and 2 bedrooms which was meant for 4 people. We had 6 people and managed to squeeze onto the beds. However, the water supply is likely from the nearby river, so if you're not comfortable using river water to shower or wash up, do take note of that. Having said that, it's actually quite refreshing to bathe in nice cool river water.
The next day, we got up at 645am! After a quick washing up, we went to meet our guide at the park office. We were told to declare all the items we are bringing up to the mountain. Things like the number of clothing, disposable plastics, bottles, batteries, hiking poles... the list goes on. It's a very common practice for mountains in Malaysia, but how strict they are on enforcing it depends on which park office you are at. The Gunung Ledang one was a bit stricter than most as they actually count all the pieces of items when we came back down the mountain. Very good practice in keeping our nature parks clean!
Once we've all checked our bags, we started on the hike. Our packs were relatively light as we had stored any extra weight in our rental car. Referring to the map above, the whole hike consists of 7 Check Points (CP) and then the summit. The first section of the hike was purely stairs, which was quite tiring! after abt 10 mins, we reached the trails and shortly after that we reached CP1! CP1 to CP2 was only about 15 minutes away, and CP3 about 25 mins from CP2. The guide told us that there was a cut off time at a spot between CP3 and CP5, if we did not reach there before 1030, then we would have to take a short less scenic route. But it was quite a lenient cut-off time and we made it with time to spare.
After about an hour or so more of hiking, we reached a very rocky and bouldery section! It was really fun as we had to squeeze under those big rocks and crawl through the gaps. At some sections there were ladders to help us through.
Then after the bouldery section can the KFC, aka Killing Fitness Center. It was about 20 minutes of purely steep hiking up all the way! It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds if you pace yourself and go slowly hahaha. The incline here was really steep though and there were many ladders along the way to help you up.
After finishing the KFC we reached the most famous part of the hike, the roped climbing section! This part is probably the most well known part of the hike as it looks sooo cool! A few years ago, when I first heard of Mount Ophir, I saw some photos of this and immediately I wanted to climb this hahaha. Fast forward 4 years and I'm finally here! The roped part consists of 2 sections. The first part is a shorter part about 15-20m long with a very steep incline, it was sort of like a warmup for the bigger one to come soon. The second section of it was longer, at about 20-30m long, the steepness starts off gentle and quickly becomes very steep at one part, maybe 60 - 70 degrees, then afterwards becomes gentler again. For those with good upper body strength, its not hard to climb as there are knots on the rope which help in gripping the rope and pulling yourself up! However, for those with weaker arms, it will be slightly challenging. But worry not, as there is actually a "secret" path at the side where you can go around and skip this rope section haha. I guess this was all actually just for the gram LOL.
After the roped section, we entered into my favourite part of any Malaysian mountain treks, the "Mossy Forest". when nearing the peak, at about 1000+m altitude, the forests in these mountains start to thin out and the flora here is very different from the rest of the trek. The ground is carpeted in a pleasing layer of moss and the floor is usually soft. The surrounding trees start to resemble bonsai trees, as this part of the forest is also sometimes known as bonsai forest. The air here is usually more cooling at a comfortable temperature of roughly 20-degree celsius. This is usually the most enjoyable part of any trek in Malaysia as it serves as an indication that you have already gone past the toughest sections. However, it is by no means a sign that the hike is over as the trek can still go on for hours and hours more as is the case for longer treks such as Gunung Tahan or Gunung Korbu + Gayong.
From here, it's just a short 30 minutes to the summit! the last part was just a steep ascent of many ladders in a row. There was a small false peak before the actual summit. A false peak is a high point which seems to be the summit at first, but then you see the actual summit looming over you and then you suddenly have the dreadful feeling of having to go down again. For some, it really demoralises you to think that you've reached the summit when you actually haven't. But I find that it's actually not that bad if you think of it as sort of like a checkpoint and you get to take a break by trekking down.
During the last part of the summit push, one of our group and a few from another group started to get cramps on their thighs and calves. Ophir can be quite challenging and cramp-inducing, as it involves almost 10 hours of hiking and the ascent, is mostly steep upslopes. Our guide gave us some mango powdered juice which really helped us keep our electrolytes up and our legs cramp-free! If you're prone to cramps, it's advisable to bring some hydration salts or isotonic drinks with you. Nevertheless, everyone managed to make it to the summit in time!
The peak was just amazing! at the summit, there is was a big open area that had the sign board and another landmark on it. It is big enough to fit like 30 or 40 people at once. From up there, you could see the nearby town which I believe is Sagil, which is located right beside the base of Ophir. We made it to the summit at around 12 ish, which gave us 1hr + to have our lunch and take photos!
The lunch was included in the price of the hike when we signed up with Gunung Ledang park office. They gave each of us a pack of Kembara meal which was an instant Ready to Eat pack that had a self heating function. Pretty cool! The way it works is that it comes with a pack of chemicals that you place at the bottom of the packaging and pour some cool water in it, the chemicals let out LOTS of heat and the water will start to boil almost instantly! after waiting for about 5 minutes, the meal would be hot enough and you can take out the food to eat. The food inside is stored in sealed packets, which don't come into contact with the chemicals so it should be totally safe. It's actually already pre-cooked and ready to eat even without the heating, but who wants to eat a cold meal right? :) The Kembara meal was really tasty, we had the chicken masak merah with tomato rice as shown in the picture, the chicken sauce was full of flavour and didn't taste like army rations at all! 10/10 meal. However, the amount of plastics used for just this small meal was not really eco-friendly.
After the meal, we rested for a while more to enjoy the scenery and the breeze atop the mountain. Such a calming place to be. Shortly after, we started the descent back down. The path w took was slightly different from the way up. It's kinda weird because the path isn't even on the map shown above. But the path was steeper and more direct than the path up. Eventually, we converged onto the original path somewhere between CP 3 and CP5, which was the cut-off time location. In total, we took roughly 3-4 hours to trek down to the starting point. There, they made us count and declare each piece of item that we brought up again to confirm that we didn't leave anything on the mountain!
All in all, it was a really fun hike and definitely worth it for anyone wanting to go on something more adventurous than the typical Singapore trails! Though if you are planning to go for this, definitely be ready for a challenge as it can take you more than 9hr! I wouldn't mind doing this trek again because of its nice views and it can be done in a day.
For those who are planning on their own trip up Mount Ophie, you can contact the park office directly and arrange for a guide!
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