Canopy Walk at KL Forest Eco Park (Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve)

I thought there’d be the typical nature walk or hike at KL Forest Eco Park (formerly known as Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve) because that’s the usual case when there’s canopy walk, plus the place’s called a park. But nope.

We learned online that KL Forest Eco Park is opened at 7am; the signage at the park stated 8am onward though. Anyway, we only arrived at 9am and learned from the information counter at KL Tower that we need to get the free tickets from the ticketing counter for a canopy walkway tour at 10am.

We got our tickets, went to the entrance of KL Forest Eco Park located within the compound of KL Tower and discovered that the management of the park is a total haywire.

Firstly, the entrance that the KL Tower staff lead us to was locked. It’s stated on the gate to go to the main entrance located opposite of St Andrew Church, at the foot of the hill. But the staff told us this gate should be opened at 10 am and so we waited outside the gate, wondering if the tour guide would meet us there. After all, we had to get the tickets from KL Tower so it only made sense to start our free tour from the KL Tower entrance right? Nope. At 10am, a security guard opened the gate and said that the gate would be open again at 12pm only based on the free tour schedule so we could only get out at 12pm. Erm…

We thought that in this case, we might as well drive over to the main entrance so that we don’t limit ourselves to the schedule. Then we noticed the second issue. There’s no tour guide.

At Pusat Maklumat Perhutanan (use this landmark on Google Maps), where the main entrance of KL Forest Eco Park is located, the staff were puzzled that I had a ticket because the canopy walk is accessible without a tour guide at any time of the day (a contradiction to the notice issued by the Forestry Director of Kuala Lumpur). Even more puzzling, he said there’s no tour guide. Erm…

Whatever.

At this point, after waiting for an hour for nothing and paying RM6 at each entrances for parking, we thought we might as well complete our mission and explore this place once and for all.

Here’s a quick overview of the place. If you’re looking for fitness activity at this place, forget it because it’s not challenging and the mosquitoes are aggressive. If you’re looking for Canopy walk per se, KL Forest Eco Park is a good choice because it’s so accessible. The canopy walk is located less than 5 minutes walk from the main entrance. I suspect the park is good for educational trips as well because they have labels for trees in the park but I didn’t not check out how informative they are. As mentioned, the mosquitoes were aggressive so we went sprint walking the whole time.

The staff at the information counter told us the walking trail would take us 45 minutes to complete. I’m pretty sure we didn’t explore the entire trail because we were out of the park within 20 minutes. I barely sweated and the fact that I was recovering from my 2.5 month old colon surgery didn’t bother me at all so it’s definitely a very easy trail.

To sum up, go for it if you need a quick canopy walk thrill within the city. It’s free. It’s accessible. It’s new so no worry about poor maintenance. Just go to the main entrance located near St Andrew’s Church. On Google Maps, set your destination to Pusat Maklumat Perhutanan Bukit Nanas. Don’t use Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve as POI. It’d lead you the base of KL Tower. You’re free to enter the park 8am onward (according to the signage I saw, that’s the opening hour). Don’t have to get your tickets. Don’t expect a tour. Just go in and you’d be on the canopy walk in 5 minutes.

Hope this helps you get a better picture about our KL Forest Eco Park (Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve) and set the right expectations before your trip.