Hiking at Bukit Kiara, TTDI – Dec 2019

I’ve been to Bukit Kiara many times but mostly took the nicely paved gravel road walking track from Changkat Abang Haji Openg road, not because I prefer it but because I couldn’t figure out the dirt tracks. I find the track confusing as there’s no signage. And the maps that I find online are not of much help either.

The hiking trail map I downloaded from TRAKS. Save me.

At the end of 2018, I tried exploring the dirt trail. It started off pretty promising. I hiked past some beautiful nurseries and matured trees. I loved it. But I called it a day before we found The Peak because of wardrobe malfunction.

I enjoyed hiking last these trees in 2018. So pretty!

At the end of 2019, I was reminded of my unfinished quest at Bukit Kiara and decided to go explore the dirt trails again in hope of figuring out the trails and finding The Peak. Spoiler alert: I failed again. This time, there was no wardrobe malfunction. I somehow just exited the trail as I followed the trail I was on. 😅

I couldn’t trace back the trail to the beautiful nurseries I saw a year earlier. In fact, I couldn’t recognize any of the trail I took. Perhaps I shouldn’t re-explore a year apart. 😅

Anyway, let’s at least journal my exploration this time with the hope that I’d recognize the trail better the next time. And hopefully find my way to the nurseries again, and finally find The Peak.

I started the trail on the left, right before the guard house. From there, I always kept to my right whenever I arrive at forks that go different ways.

This is the guard house from Changkat Abang Haji Openg road.
Right before the guard house, there’s an entrance to the trail on the left, marked by a tree with a rubbish bin cover.
From then on, I kept choosing the trail on the right everytime I arrive at a fork.
As I kept keeping right, I was actually hiking near the gravel walking track. So time and again, I could hear and see people on the track. The are quite a few access to the track like this even.
One of the more interesting paths I encountered that day was this stretch of trees arching over the path.
Another memorably part of the hike was this stretch of incline. Omg. It’s much longer than what I captured here. By the time I climbed to the top, my face was sweaty. Even RK felt the climb was tiring — he barely complains.
There was actually some roadworks happening on the cliff during our hike and we accidentally followed a path opened for the roadworks. We ended up at the cliff and nowhere else to go so we had to turn back. For once, we had to take a left turn.
30min after we started hiking, our always-keep-right formula eventually led us out of the trail, to the junction of the walking track. Aiks.

We decided to continue walking further on the gravel road, in hope to find another opening back to the dirt track. I kinda regret that decision because walking on such even and hard road in my kampung Adidas was a pain… The rubber shoes are great for dirt tracks but the lack of cushion, plus the fact that my shoe sole was spiky, really hurt my feet.

15min later (felt longer), we walked past the entrance to this trail. I recognized this entrance. Here’s where I ended my hike in 2018.
Spiky kampung Adidas and gravel road. Not a good combination.

As the 2nd dirt track that we saw seemed to be under some roadworks, we decided to continue following the gravel walking track and called it a day when we completed the loop back to the guard house.

Is anyone familiar with the trails at Bukit Kiara? I’m more than happy to get some tips on navigating the hiking trail there.

Hiked and walked 4.47km in total. Estimate that we were off-road for about 1.5km only.
No lie about the ascend that literally took my breathe away.

Even though I haven’t explore the trail properly yet, I’d rate the trail as moderately difficult (for noob hill level), simply because of that one stretch of climb. I was so afraid I’d faint as I was hiking up that trail. It didn’t really pass my “faint test”? 😂 So if you’re totally not fit (like me), don’t explore this trail first.