Royal Rangers Selangor 7

By Commander Terence Ooi

“Just a lil’ bit more”

“We’re almost there”

“Commander, can I rest for awhile?”

“You can do it guys, c’mon!”

These were few common phrases heard whilst the brave-hearted Adventure Boys embarked on their journey to conquer Gunung Nuang, end of April.

After several weeks of exercise, staying fit and training on less gradient terrain (like Gasing Hill), they now embarked on this year’s mission – to reach the tallest peak in Selangor, standing at 1493 metres.

Armed with backpacks, energy bars, packets of maggi mee and water bottles, we started our journey early in the morning. By 8:30am we were already ascending the hill. The first part of the journey was a steep hill all the way. Our first destination was Lolo Camp – that was our base camp – where we will stay for the night. Journey took us about 2 hours, with 2-3 stops in between for a breather.

Upon arriving at Lolo camp, we pitched our tents, while others cooked, and still others
munched on their roti (bread) and muesli bars. The state of cleanliness was bad at Lolo
Camp and it was very disheartening to many of us. Rubbish were seen strewn everywhere
i.e., cans, water bottles, plastic wrappers, milo boxes – you name it, you get it. Hence, the
sight of ants, flies and mosquitoes were all over.

By noon, we continued our journey. Next stop was Kem Pacat (Pacat Camp). The
journey from the Forestry Office to Lolo can now be considered a walk in a park. The
journey here was rougher and tougher. Several of us slipped along the way as rain visited
us. Quickly we draped on our raincoat to avoid shivering in the cold.

We arrived at Pacat two hours after that. Following much discussion among the leaders
and the guides, we decided to leave one of our ranger at Pacat to await us later. He could
not continue anymore, hence, he stayed with another guide who accompanied him. After
much encouragement and of course – rest – we continued our final leg, or so we thought.

The guide had told us, it was two more hours to the peak, and after two hours, we only
arrived at the second final peak – Puncak Pengasih (Pengasih Peak). The journey to
Pengasih was a mean feat. At times we had to climb on all fours. Pulling ropes and
branches to hoist ourselves up really drained even the fittest of us.

It was almost 5pm by then and we decided not to continue and head back to Lolo camp.
The main reason was because we didn’t want our fellow ranger to wait for us for a total
of 5 hours at Kem Pacat. None of the boys were disappointed at all and that showed a
true sense of unity and loyalty.

Boys will always be boys. We dived into the cold shivering waters back at Lolo camp.
Our teeth clenched, pores opened up, eyes gawked and muscles cramped. Oh no! Then
we realized, there were a couple of boys upstream bathing and “dancing” in the water at
the same time. Aiks! Hopefully none of the boys had a surge of “something warm”
downstream.
We munched our way through dinner. Some had maggi mee, chicken kurma or bread.
The commanders feasted on pasta, mushroom soup and nestum. What a life!
The night was a peaceful one as we all snoozed quietly after devotion. The boys must
have all been wrecked!
We arrived back to civilization and many were glad to be back. Else, some of us had this
in mind – “I’ll be back soon to reach the peak!”