Mt. Ophir Trip 13-16 Nov 06 (Episode 2)

The first evening at Ophir was really pretty cold..at one point, I could see the condensation coming out of my mouth when I was speaking! Almost felt like I was in Genting..hehe. Still remember when I was eating my cup noodle, I purposely stood real close to the stove so that my legs could feel warmer..almost everyone were wearing sweaters.
A pity it was still drizzling at night, so we couldn't have any night activity nor just simply sit outside the tent to chit chat. All of us were back in our tents at 8+pm. But perhaps everyone was excited, or maybe the floor was simply too damp/flooded to sleep peacefully..lotsa cadets were up and talking and laughing into the wee hours of the night....which I seriously think was a bit inconsiderate to be laughing and playing at 2+am in the morning.

So oh well, next morning came and we trekked to the summit. Must really thank R for giving me that sports walking stick. It was REALLY a very great help in the climbing, because it was extra support...as if I had 3 legs for climbing instead of 2 :) So it eased the pressure on my legs quite a bit. Think my 3 weeks of running did help too..didn't feel as jialat as the last time I climbed.

The next personal challenge for me on the trip was, climbing up that steep rock surface with the ropes. I slipped the last time I climbed, because my gloves weren't suitable for climbing, and so I grazed my elbow pretty badly on the rock surface. So that was a psychological hurdle that I had to climb too.




















(On left) This is the wall and ropes that leads to the even steeper wall and ropes in the picture on the right. Bear in mind that, there are no safety precautions whatsoever..no harnesses nothing. So if you really slip and fall off the wall, then it's GERANIMOH.....
Well, I'm proud to say I managed to scale both walls! Haha..though when I was climbing the 2nd surface, I was really quite scared because I was worried about my arm strength. It was afterall quite vertical and not a short distance upwards. But anyhow, I managed it ;)




























This is all of us at checkpoint 7, the one just before the summit. It was also here that our guides told us of the possibility of not being able to reach the summit because of the ominous clouds that were floating in our direction. 4 years ago, someone actually got struck by lightning at the summit because of bad weather, so P and I couldn't take our chances. And so we rested and waited to see if the weather would clear...................















































........................................................and it did :)