Trekking Singapore and Beyond
The Journey of an Urban City Kid into Beautiful Nature

I received an email from a friend just yesterday about a cycling event round the corner. Its called the Green is the new Pink Bike-a-Thon!

Pretty good way to spend your Valentine’s day if you have not had any plans yet

Here are the details

Start point: sun plaza park
End point/picnic ground: east coast park area c4
Date/day: 14 feb 09/saturday
Reporting time: 0645hours
Flag-off: 0800 hours
Registration fee: $15 (inclusive of bike and helmet rental fee and attractive goodie bag)

Check out more details and register at http://makegreenthenewpink.wordpress.com/

Tags: cycling

Wow! We had a brilliant turnout this morning at Bukit Timah Hill! Hope you guys enjoyed yourself and had a good sweat-out!

Special thanks to Taxi Pool volunteers: Shi, Mahesh and Jess. Also thanks to Baveen (did I get your name correct?) for helping to guide the first group up. Really appreciate your help!

It really excites me to be able to bring people together and help them experience nature and adventure. We don’t have many patches of native forest left here in Singapore, and Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is one of them.

For those who’ve been trekking, I’m sure you’d feel that Bukit Timah Hill is nothing compared to the other more challenging treks overseas. But still, this is a good start, right?

I will post up the photos once I get them.

Update: Here are some photos by Shi! (click on the photo to view more!)

Photo Credit: Shi

More photos from Yati

… and yes, I’ll definitely organise an overseas trip next year!

Tags: bukit timah hill, trekking

I read on the TODAYOnline news today that NATAS has decided to sponsor the Singapore Women’s Everest Team. Last year, they lacked funding.

They will set off for Everest in April 2009! I know a friend who knows one of the mountaineers personally, so I’m really happy for them!

I don’t aspire to climb Everest (only Kilimanjaro!), but I know it’s like a dream come true for these ladies to know that at least the funding is settled.

Check out the official website for the Singapore Women’s Everest Team, and their blogs too!

Tags: mount everest, Mount Kilimanjaro

I’m organizing an short hike on 30 November 2008 (that is next Sunday), up Bukit Timah Hill!

Here are the details:

Date: 30 November 2008

Time: 0830hrs – 1400hrs

Venue: Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Where to meet: 0830hrs sharp outside the visitor center toilet!

Fee: What fee? Its FREE! (Thanks Ana, for asking though)

We’ll be taking the smaller trials and this will probably take 3-4 hours, depending on the group size and speed. From my previous experience, there will be quite a lot of steps (enough to get you panting if you don’t train regularly), so be prepared.

According to the NParks Website, the yellow trial takes 2 hours. We’ll be taking the black route. Yes, that’s my drawing

You’d probably want to allocate until mid afternoon for the event, if you are an time planning fanatic like me.

Please post a comment this blog post to indicate your interest!

NOTE: Please don’t leave your contact numbers and email in the comment box, because this is a very public blog and you don’t know what people do with numbers they find on the net. Put your email only in the “email” field. I’ll get in touch with your via email.

Tags: bukit timah, trekking

I just received this from a friend through email.

There will be a New Balance warehouse sale from today until Saturday. So for those who are going on treks during the December period, this might be a good place for you to get some good clothing for your treks.

Well, New Balance is more of a sports brand than an outdoor or adventure brand, but I’m sure they do have quick dry apparel which are very useful for treks. They do have outdoor footwear but I’ll leave it to you to decide if they are good quality (I don’t know cos I’ve never tried them )

Here are the details:

Thanks all who turned up for the MacRitchie walk today! The weather was great this morning and I’m really amazed at the turnout! Not bad for a first time gathering eh!

Here is the group photo we took today. If you want the original hi-res photos, drop me a comment, and I’ll be in touch over email!

So what’s next, Kian Ann?

Ha ha… now that we’ve met up, we can work on some longer and more interesting treks (I see that today was kinda “no sweat” for many of you!).

Shall we go Bukit Timah next? What about Sat 30th August, or Sun 31st August? This will be slightly more challenging than today!

Meanwhile, I know many of you have plans to go overseas and are already looking for kakis! Heh… I’ll set the forum quick so you can communicate with each other!

Tags: bukit timah, macritchie, singapore trekking

I’m sure you heard about it in the news reports… about the 9 fatalities on K2 today.

More about it is reported here.

From the report, apparently the climbers met with the avalanche on their descent and K2 has the deadliest descent:

Those mountaineers who reach the peak have a much greater chance of dying while descending than on other peaks: 27 per cent have perished making their way back down – a rate three times higher than on Everest.

This is a real tragedy, and I express my deepest condolences to the families of the climbers – and lets all also pray for the best for the climbers who are still on the mountain fighting for their lives.

Tags: avalanche, k2

Wow! Its been a loooong while since I posted – over a year! I’ve not been trekking for some time now – its really easy to get bogged down with work once we start working, and time really flies.

… and my belly’s got bigger too.

Well, I’m glad that I started this blog, if not I guess my trekking days will be over. Its great to know that over the year, the community has grown to a good size (at least enough to be a community!)

Recently, there has been a little more activity, and a few of us have decided to get started with a small activity – just as a warm up… lets go for a walk at MacRitchie Reservoir next weekend!

Here are the details:

Date: 10 August 2008 Sunny Sunday!

Time: Meet at 0815hrs (please come on time, we’ll leave at 0830hrs sharp!)

Where: Bus stop at MacRitchie Reservoir (refer to map below!)

What: Walk, 1 round MacRitchie ~ 2 – 3 hours, and get to know each other better! (so we can work on longer treks!)

Grade: Suitable for everyone! Bring water, cap, snacks (if you need) and insect repellant if you are very sensitive to insects.

Who: You! If you are reading this… and bring your friends along! No need to register or pay anything, but do leave a comment on this post, so we know approximately how many to expect!

Here’s the map and how to get there:

View Larger Map

Excited!

Tags: macritchie, walk

Great! After setting up this email list, I received an email last week about one of the members going for a 15 day trek to Garhwal Himalayas in July.

The trek crosses through high altitude regions with rivers, and passes, highest point being about 20,000 ft (about 6,000 meters). According to Ravi (our member), this trek is only suitable for people with experience trekking.

The trek is scheduled in the month of July, as this is the only month when these pass are accessible. The cost of the trek is about S$2000 apart from the air tickets.

Do drop a comment if you are interested, so I can connect you up with Ravi!

Tags: garhwal himalayas, trekking

In effort to form up this community of trekkers in Singapore, I have recently subscribed to an email management service so that I don’t have to keep track of all your email addresses by copying them into my Excel file one by one!

Through this list, I hope that I can help to connect you with other people interested in trekking, so for example, if you are organising a trek and you hope to find some company, you can contact me and I can help you broadcast out. Do sign up for the community at the blog sidebar if you are interested to be part of the community!

Actually, I would love to use a forum for this purpose instead, but from my own experience, forums need a lot of time and effort for moderation… and I doubt I will be able to spend that time doing that! So I guess email is the next best alternative yeah?

Tags: singapore trekking community