Oct 30, 2016

Gunung Kenderong x Gunung Kerunai 2016



K2 Twin Peaks, Gerik

Date: October 22-23, 2016
Participants: 25
Fee: MYR 38/pax

SUMMARY:

Gunung Kerunai

  • Height: 1000m / 3280ft.
  • Location: Gerik, Perak
  • Trek difficulty: 4/10
  • Time: 2 hours 20 minutes 
  • Pace: Slow to medium (with lots of stops to take photos)
  • Facilities & fee: Requires permit


Gunung Kenderong

  • Height: 1253m / 4110ft.
  • Location: Gerik, Perak
  • Trek difficulty: 6.5/10
  • Time: 2 hours 10 minutes 
  • Pace: Medium
  • Facilities & fee: Requires permit


Last Saturday (Oct 22) was my birthday so instead of just staying at home eating cakes and junk food and layan kdrama, I joined a trip organized by Syed and his high school friends to Gerik to visit these two mountains; twin peaks of Perak which are also known as K2 (because the initials for both are K). 



*LWP = last water point

Above is the itinerary but as usual, 
kita hanya merancang, perangai masing-masing yang menentukan haha.


- Bertolak from Ipoh at 1 am and reached Masjid Gerik at around 3 am.
- The pickup truck/powil fetched us at around 8 am.
- From Masjid Gerik to starting point took about 25 minutes.



  • Starting point to campsite

So entah la macam mana cerita dia, track yang biasa orang lalu tak dapat digunakan so the pickup truck driver drop us off at another route which was sooooooooo far away from the campsite. So from this drop off point we had to walk to Kerunai junction first then only to the helipad/campsite yang mana kalau route biasanya, from drop off point to campsite will take about 20-30 minutes (or maybe less) je!

For your information, kat sini banyak sangat pacat tak tipu, even worse than Gunung Bubu in Kuala Kangsar (told by my friends who had been to Bubu). Probably because it's that time of the year; the rainy season. So yeah, tips: make sure you wear long socks so that you can tuck in the leg ends of your pants/leggings into your socks, and also tuck in your inner to your leggings or however you wanna do it to minimize the chance of getting bitten by those nasty pacats. I even had a few crawling and sucking blood on my back sheesh i don't know how they got there.



  • Campsite

I think the reason why the campsite is called as the helipad is because it is like a very big field and it can actually accommodates two helis there (kot). Since the trees are all far far apart, we had to make our own tiang and whatnots to set up our flysheets. Next to the campsite is the only waterpoint, a small stream but ok la, still puas nak mandi, berendam and all that.

The campsite
The last water point



  • Gunung Kerunai

Initially if you look at the itinerary, we planned to start hiking up Gunung Kerunai at 11 am kan but then we decided to start at 2.30 pm instead so we can reach the summit on time for sunset. And also, since we hiked up a bit late, it was not as hot as what other hikers told us it would be. 

The view was so mesmerizing. It got us soooo high, feeling euphoric just by looking around; the clouds, the trees, Gunung Kenderong at the opposite side, the angin sepoi sepoi bahasa slapping your cheeks gracefully aaaahhhhhhh (don't just walk forward, sesekali pandang belakang ok). If this is the feeling and the reason why the junkies do drugs, I guess I now understand how good it feels. The trek was relaxing, not too hard but not a plain landai trek as well. It took us about 2 hours and 20 minutes to reach the summit but really, you can actually do it in just 1 hour and a half. But it's harddddd to not stop and take photos because Subhanallah - that says it all :)


We couldn't really see the sun sets because it was obscured by Gunung Kenderong. Nak tunggu apa lagi kan, we started descend as early as 6 pm and reached the campsite at 7.40 pm. All I did during the trip was hike, sleep, eat and repeat like for real, it's not just slogan on tees but it happened to me hahaha. I don't know why but I'm really hypersomniac since the past three weeks. I didn't help the other girls to prepare our dinner and only woke up when it was time to eat. Sorry, blame my messed up biological clock.

After dinner, everyone went straight to bed even though it was only 10-ish. C'mon guys, very poor social life hahaha. Another tips: wear socks and insect and pacat repellant (if there's such thing like that) before going to bed. Because I was awaken a few times due to those pacat bites. Tiba-tiba rasa gatal dekat leher, rupanya ada pacat. Tiba-tiba rasa jari kaki basah, rupanya active bleeding bekas pacat gigit. And it goes on and on and on til the next morning. 



  • Gunung Kenderong

I was actually hesitant whether to go up this gunung or not because previously I heard someone telling that it takes roughly about 6-9 hours to reach the summit. Oh boy you must be kidding me. Because yknow, if we went up at 3 am, we'll reach the summit at 11 am. And let's say we start descend at 12 pm, at what time will we reach the campsite and then back to masjid? And then back to Ipoh? Like ??????? I have class at 0745H the next morning ok. No joke. 

But of course, at the end I made up my mind to just proceed because yolo. 

And since I was all malas and dilema to pergi or to not pergi and  Mun and Jelin were so liat nak bangun, we all got left behind by the others hahahaha cis tak tau pun diorang dah gerak ok. Tak sound apa pun tetiba ada orang datang fly bagitau yang the others dah gerak like 10 minutes ago. K guys k.

Oh yea, forgot to mention that there were another group of probably 20 people kot sharing the same campsite as us. So no big, we asked for direction from our "neigbor"'s guide hihi.  

Tips: At some point of the track, there will be a junction. TAKE LEFT to go Kenderong summit. 
The right hand side one will lead you to some chalet on construction. 

And guess what, the rest of our members took the Right route!! Patut la masa kami berempat nak lalu route yang kiri, macam pelik, sebab ada spider web besar dekat tengah-tengah trek. Logically if the others dah lepas, mesti spider web tu dah kena langgar kan and we were right, diorang actually dah sampai ke chalet tu dah pun. Kesian a bit la sebab mesti penat.

40 minutes before reaching the summit, there'll be a camp called Kem Solar. We all rested and took a nap there planning to wait for sunrise but since it rained a bit earlier in the morning, the sky was filled with thick puffy clouds so nope, no chance of witnessing the sun rises from Kem Solar. And it was so cold up there. So another tips; if you're planning to hike early before dawn, please bring your sweater/windbreaker together ok. We decided to just carry on to the summit since there'll be no sunrise anyway and as it was cold, we couldn't stay still and need to keep on moving to heat up our body and also because Kem Solar was all packed and crowded already.

The trek was SUPER CRAZY. Awal-awal boleh tahan lagi, inclination around 40++ degree, but as we got nearer to the summit, the inclination was around 70-80 degree. Canak teruk. There were a lot of wall climbing required. Taktau lah macam mana ada group yang boleh bawa bag besar overnight dekat summit, power betul.

To be honest it was actually very dangerous, one slip and maybe you won't be alive anymore because it was soooo steep, no kidding. Climbing up was still ok, but when I stopped to catch my breath and look behind, damn, I wonder if I will ever be able to climb down and then I started to regret my decision to join this trip lol. Ok la maybe there are some parts that are exaggerated hihi but if I were given the chance to go again, I would :)

Tips: Please wear your gloves because the rope will hurt your hands and also you will sometimes need to grab any pokok or whatever is there next to you to prevent you from slipping especially when climbing down. 

Tips: To avoid hot weather, start climbing down early.


And also, I think we got it all wrong. 
The best place to watch sunrise is from Gunung Kerunai, and Gunung Kenderong for sunset. 

The thing is, I don't think I can either climb and hike down Kenderong at night or bring up my big bag up and down the mountain in case if we planned to stay overnight at the summit. But there had been a few groups who done this so yea, maybe you could try it too.

The 2 peaks right behind me
Line up for this trip

this is the actual timing based on my pace



I guess that's all that I can share about this trip with you guys.
If you have any question, feel free to leave me a comment, email or insta-DM me :)


Here's a short video of our 2D1N trip.




5 comments:

Wherever said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fatin said...

Good idea hiking sini nih! Thanks for sharing :)

Unknown said...

I love reading your blog hahaha xD thanks for all the experiences you have shared.

Your words and the way u describeb all stuff make me feel funny and excited.

^^\/ peace from a new adventurer

Anonymous said...

Boleh tau macama mne nak ke k2?ada no guide x?
Whatsapp 0176551401 for fast response

yummy! said...

Only 1 small stream? There are no waterfalls? Go to the city of miri which is at the border with brunei, and you can hike up (1)Canada hill, right in town opposite parkson, and enjoy the bright colorful sunset while taking a sweeping view of the city skyline, (2)Lambir national park, only 30minute drive out the city and rm10 permit, and choose which summit or waterfall you prefer - the waterfalls aren't big, but when my group of 8 went on a non-school holiday sunday morning recently, the particular waterfall became exclusive for our group only :) (3)Niah cave national park, about 1 hour drive from town, and you can google about it :) (4)Gunung mulu national park, which is listed in unesco's world heritage, with its peaks and awesome caves and valleys and waterfall. It's only 30minute flight away from miri using maswings on either a Fokkker50 or an ATR72, both turboprop planes. Google for its attractions etc. Cuti2 malaysia! :)