Suddenly I was slipping down the wet limestone rock. My leg moved
over for a toehold that was not there. It was like a nightmare where everything
happens in slow motion. Below me, the sheer vertical face ended in a
rocky bottom. Then suddenly, my friend had caught my wrists and
swung me up on to a crack in the rock about two inches wide. I then
scrambled onto a ledge which led to a smooth sided vertical tube leading
upwards.
We were climbing Bukit Takun.
he scouts of the First Kuala Lumpur Seniors had often done this before
but not in such a large group. Altogether, there were nearly thirty of
us. You may ask: Where is Bukit Takun? If you head north out of Kuala Lumpur,
you come to the Kanching Pass. After passing the district boundary, you
come to a small bowl of lowland and there, lying in front of you, is a
sheer pinnacle of limestone with greenery on top. The sides are festooned
green so that the total effect is one of wonderment. Sometimes, when the
mist partly obscures it, it resembles some primeval monster out of a misty
past. The Malays call it Bukit Takun - the Tiger's Tooth. It is actually a
pinnacle of limestone cut off from the surrounding foothills which reaches
over 1,000 feet.
The route to its base is a long and tortuous walk
through undergrowth. Around it is much abandoned mining land so that
you go up and down with the creepers dragging at your feet. From the
distance, the mountain looks near but after much walking, it seems as
unreachable as a mirage. Suddenly you burst upon an open area and there
reaching straight upwards is Bukit Takun.
As you near it, there seems to be a silence that is
slightly eerie. There is the high pitched hum of the cicadas. You walk
in the dark undergrowth. Small boulders give way as you step on them.
The firm laterite gives way to slippery mud. After a hard climb, during
which you fight for breath, you come to a cleft in the limestone reaching
to great depths. It was in here that our Scoutmaster fell some years ago,
while exploring, and had to be lifted out. Somewhere nearby you can hear a
small stream cascading over the rocks but search, and you will not find
it. You move along in the shade cast by the giant mass of rock. You come
to the base and even now your feet ache with pain.
The perpendicular face is criss-crossed with cracks.
By edging along the cracks, you can rise inch by inch until you reach a
chimney-like structure. The sides have been worn down to smoothness
and it is only by pushing up with the feet and the back that can you climb
it. After this, the ascent consists of crawling over a series of parallel
limestone ridges. The tops of the rocks are pitted with tiny holes so that
each surface is like a porcupine with needle-sharp slivers of rock. As
you grip the rocks your palms become more and more painful until you no
longer feel the pain. They become red with innumerable pin pricks. The
sides of the rock are covered with all sorts of vegetation - brittle
plants that snap when they are stepped upon, leaves that are lined with
needle-sharp barbs, moss that is springy underfoot. In fact, the mountain
itself is a botanist's wonderland with species of plants not found elsewhere.
The sheer naked beauty of Nature strikes you as you climb higher and
higher.
The feeling of exhilaration comes when you gaze upon
the land below and feel the wind striking your face. Up here, the wind
blows and whistles. Below are thin greyish lines reaching among the canopy
of green. But this cannot be admired until the top is reached. Every step
is fraught with danger. Some rocks rumble when you step upon them; other's
fall down tumbling. You no longer have control of yourself: you go on
and on until climbing becomes almost automatic and mechanical. Yet you
cannot stop, because the summit is so tantalizing and because "it is there".
All sorts of obstacles lie in your path. You must push yourself up a
15-foot high chimney of rock. You must leap across a gap of rocks. You
must trust the direction of the leader because danger lies everywhere.
Mt. Olympus
Finally, you cannot believe it, but yes, at last you
have reached the top. The blistering heat, the aching limbs, the throbbing
pain were all worth it. As you stand high up and look below and feel
immortal you come to understand why the Greek Gods chose Mt. Olympus.
But you cannot linger too long. Already nearly two hours have been spent
climbing. You carefully return by the same path you came on. When the
mountain was first climbed by scouts, they came down the wrong way and
were lost in the jungle below. They wandered in the night and licked the
dew off the leaves to ease their thirst. By a stroke of luck, they
reached the main road at 1 a.m. in the night. But this does not happen
to you. You descend even more carefully than you ascended. Every action
becomes mechanical once again. Each step becomes an agony. You stop but
your knees have turned to rubber and cannot stay still. Your hand quivers
and no longer possesses any strength. After an eternity, you reach the
base and from there stumble to the kongsi two miles away.
As you sit down and sip a cup of scalding tea, you are
struck by a feeling of satisfaction which comes every time no matter how
many times you have climbed up. It is the feeling of having achieved something.
The feeling of having climbed Bukit Takun.
The climb described took place in September
1964. Recently, in December last year, the writer made another ascent with four
other scouts. This ascent was the seventh achieved by the First K.L. Scouts in
recent years. A point of interest is that one of the first persons to discover
the route up was Phua Juay Chee, the 1964 School Captain. The Assistant Scout
Master for the Boy Scouts, Au-Yong Kun Ying, has climbed up eight times in all.
Chong Sze Foh, Assistant Senior Scout Master, has reached the summit seven times.
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