We have made it!
It was truly a memorable day, not only because now we can proudly tell everyone, we have been there, done that (OK OK, big deal, many people did that numerous time, and more even do it like twice a month, nevertheless, it was really an achievement for amateur like us), the unbearable test on our mental and physic, tormenting deep into each of them, and pushed our determination to its limit, it was the hardest thing we have done so far! And not to mention we have also made the headlines!
25 people, from our usual guy group of Chun, Yan, Chean, Yen Han, and added up the girls and their friends, with 9 more Chean's motorolan colleagues, started the long and crazy trekking journey at 7am, and for everyone to safely came back at the starting point, it was at an unbelievable time of 230am! No, there's no typo error, it's really AM we are talking about here! A total of almost 20 freaking hours of journey, which around 15 hours of trekking if excluded resting! Catch the whole story here.
The last few of us to arrive summit was around 2pm, almost 7 hours taken. At this point, you can see we were really out of schedule, night trekking was inevitable, if consider we need 7 hours more to go down. Although some of us did bring torch lights, but it was unquestionable lack of equipment for night trekking, thus, making the journey incredible harder and longer. Guess what, the most powerful torch light we have was not even a torch light, it was the camera LED of a Sony Ericsson K700i mobile phone! Really ironic.
Separated into 3 groups, we were only able to reach the starting point, the registration area, for the first group, at 930pm, second group at 11pm and the last, 230am. The big gap between the last group was due to the misunderstanding incident. But everyone arrived safe and sound, that's most important.
And why an estimated 8-10 hours trekking and hiking took us that much longer to finish? Almost 6 hours over schedule, if consider only the trekking time. Some of the reasons I can think of:
1) The group was too large.
We were jamming each other at the beginning, where everyone waiting in queue to climb up those steep and hard slopes. For every obstacle like this, it took us almost 20 minutes to get everyone up and going. And there were dozens of them along the journey!
2) Too relax at the beginning.
Everyone started at a relax pace, we took our sweet time to relax and took photos. We tried not to get our shoes wet when crossing water streams, and that really contribute a lot in our relax factor. Lack of timing sense, sense of crisis also causing us to not aware of our time schedule.
3) Stamina difference and injuries.
Everyone has different stamina, the stronger one has to wait for the weaker one. And the weaker your stamina, the most likely you will get injured. Adding the factor of bad hiking equipment, especially shoes, the weaker one becomes weaker. I can assure you that because I was one of those injured people that dragging the whole team to slow down!
4) Last but not least, all were amateurs!
No one had experience, that is none of us had reach the summit before, so we can't estimate how hard the journey, how long is needed. We just "heard" it was like this and that, and 8-10 hours need. Probably this is the main factor that causing all of the above! Assumption is the mother of all fucked-ups!
The experience of this Gunung Nuang Expedition really showed us something that beyond our imagination! And the lesson we've learned really unquestionable very valuable for any future activities, planning, and our day to day life. I'm sure all the 25 of us has just made an unforgettable chapter in our life!
Related links
1. Conquering Gunung Nuang - The whole story
2. The "Lost in Gunung Nuang" incident
Hope everyone on this Nuang adventure remember only the great experience and happy moments forever in their life, let alone the unhappy one.
May 28, 2007 at 2:17 AM
I've learn my lesson. I'll triple check every thing & make sure that I'm fully equipped before fly over to K.K.
May 28, 2007 at 12:36 PM