Fraser's Hill : Part 1 - The 12 Hour Trek on Pine Tree Hill

I am often an impromptu person. One Friday evening at work, my colleague asked me - What are you doing this weekend? I casually replied nothing. I am having a boring weekend. That night, thinking what my colleague said, I went on Facebook and scrolled through a list of events that was going on that weekend. My fingers stopped at "Hiking at Pine Tree Hill, Fraser's Hill". Now, I have always wanted to go to Fraser's Hill, and I always hear of Pine Tree Hill. I opened the event and I saw a common friend. After 15 minutes of conversation, I clicked yes, and at 10.40pm, I packed my stuff and was to bed by 11pm. 

05042014 - I woke up at 2.30am to get ready. A short sleep but I was very much awake. I was at my friend's place by 3.30am. We met up with the other hikers at 4am at a petrol station. We started the drive at 4.30am. We reached Fraser's Hill by 7am. We parked at the food court which is next to a playground. There, I bought my breakfast of nasi lemak. Apparently, this food stall - Green Roses is quite famous because it appeared in the local newspaper for their creativity in wrapping their nasi lemak in banana leaf (that is a must) and a printed paper of their blog and facebook. Anyway, they sell the most delicious nasi lemak, very much delicious when you are so hungry and cold. 

After breakfast, we were off to the meet up point - the clock tower. There is a cool directional board at the small roundabout. Very clearly printed. You can not get lost. Fraser's Hill used to be a mining area and when all the minerals ran out, they convert the place into a tourism area. Now, Fraser's Hill is a heaven for bird watching and is also known as Little England because there are so many British designed houses and bungalows. 

The Bird Interpretive Centre. Now, I understand why most of my friends say there is nothing much in Fraser's Hill. Definitely there is none unless you are a bird-watcher. I saw many bird watchers with their huge binoculars.

The group of us finally arrived at the entrance of Pine Tree trail at 9am. There were 21 of us. A huge group. I can say this is my first time travelling in a group of more than 10. The trail started with stairs going downhill. Oh no. This is bad news. Imagine coming back. Walking up the stairs. There are signboards for trekkers to show the distance to the peak. It is a 5.4km walk. Estimated to take us 3 hours to the peak. But we took 5 hours. Mostly, we snapped a lot of photos and stopped for a long time because we had 2 injured trekkers. No fear, we still had a good time. 

50 minutes of walking, and we see we have walked 900meter.

Now, the trail goes uphill. Yay! Which means walking down when going back. But with stairs, not so good.

We saw lots of cemented blocks that served as the border between 2 states, Selangor and Pahang. I am actually walking on 2 states! It reminds me of my Tibet-Nepal walkover via the Friendship Bridge.

1 hour 40 minutes and we have walked 1.8km.

We saw a big hole that is made of a combination of trees' roots. Of course, photo time! We reached here after 1.5 hours from the start of the trail.

12pm, 3 hours of walking, and we have 3km to reach the peak.

12.55pm, close to 4 hours of walking and we have walked 4.8km. Another 600meter to go.

Look what I found! A caterpillar! Gorgeous bright yellow caterpillar against the green nature. Mother Nature, you are so awesome! My sister told me it's a caterpillar of a Death's Head Hawk Moth (Acherontia sp.) and when it becomes a moth, it will have a human skull-shaped pattern on its body. Such a cool moth! 

Here, we have reached the last 10meter to the peak. Do a bit of rock climbing, and you are at the peak.

Ta-da, the peak of Pine Tree Hill we have reached! At 1.25pm. After 4.5 hours. But we are not stopping here. We are going Twin Peak too. That will be another 30 minutes walk.

The peak of Pine Tree Hill. I took a solo photo while waiting for my friends.

We continued the trail to Twin Peak. The path becomes muddy. But not as muddy as Mount Irau. My socks are still bearable.

At last, 2.35pm, we stepped onto Twin Peak. The space was big enough for 21 of us. Duration - 5.5 hours. Another stone border I saw at the peak. My friend took out the cooking utensils and fried some chicken nuggets. We had tea at the peak. There was an exchange of food at the peak. Bread with sardin, apple, fishballs, chicken, sausage, rice, tea, coffee. We could not see much of a view at the peak because it was very misty. Plus point it was that it was cooling at the peak.

We left the peak at 4pm. For the 21 of us, the rope climbing down took us 1 hour. Guess what time we reached back at the entrance - 9pm! Good thing I brought a headlamp because one always prepares for the worst. I lent it to a fellow trekker and I used my phone - assistive light to guide my way.

A total solid 12 hours! We anticipate to reach back by 4pm. I even wanted to drive back after the hike. Change of plans. That night, I slept in my sleeping bag in my car. Yes, I did consider driving back and the sleeping bag was a backup plan in case there was sufficient space in the tent that my friend brought (because she was staying overnight).