About Fifteen More Minutes
Malaysia is a place of many natural wonders. Mountains, rainforests and beaches. The perfect place for people who love the outdoors. For a country of modest size, it certainly claims many mountains of extraordinary height.
The goal of Fifteen More Minutes is to capture our many journeys to the hills and mountains of Malaysia so that it may be shared with anyone interested in climbing these wonderful summits.
It all started as a walk up Frasers Hill, which re-kindled my old dream of one day making to the top of Kilimanjaro, the highest peak of Africa. That will continue to be a dream of course.
I started this website after finding Everytrail, which I had used to share trails of Malaysian hills and mountains, breaking down from under-capacity and neglect. Everytrail is still a great place for trail maps, and among all the sites I have come across, it remains the site with the most extensive coverage of trails in Malaysia. I try to place as many of my trips as possible on Everytrail so that they are accessible to everyone.
The goal of Fifteen More Minutes is to capture our many journeys to the hills and mountains of Malaysia so that it may be shared with anyone interested in climbing these wonderful summits.
It all started as a walk up Frasers Hill, which re-kindled my old dream of one day making to the top of Kilimanjaro, the highest peak of Africa. That will continue to be a dream of course.
I started this website after finding Everytrail, which I had used to share trails of Malaysian hills and mountains, breaking down from under-capacity and neglect. Everytrail is still a great place for trail maps, and among all the sites I have come across, it remains the site with the most extensive coverage of trails in Malaysia. I try to place as many of my trips as possible on Everytrail so that they are accessible to everyone.
Tools
Other than Everytrail, I use a number of tools to capture trail data and to post them in this website. My thanks to each one of these as without them I would not have been able to create and maintain this website so easily.
- Maps 3D on iPhone for capturing GPS data
- iPhoto for Mac for storing and captioning photos
- Exiftool on OSX for extracting photo, location and caption information
- GPS Visualizer for the amazing track visualisation map
- Dropbox for hosting photo, GPX and map information
- Weebly for creating and powering this website
Special Thanks
I am especially indebted to my family and friends who accompanied me on our adventures. I hope it was as enriching and fun for them as it was for me.
Why Fifteen More Minutes?
rWhen a bunch of us were dragging our sorry bottoms up Gunung Ledang a few years ago, someone wanted to give up and said to the guide, hey how much longer is this endless climb? And he said "15 more minutes". Well, well, we thought, almost there! So we gathered up our reserves, put our heads up and endured on for victory was almost within our grubby grasps. 45 more minutes of climbing ladders and scrambling up roots and we still didn't reach the top, and some of use were well and truly ready to throw in our muddy, soaked towels. So we complained to the guide again, are we there yet? And his response was "15 more minutes".
So near? We can't give up now can we? So once again we soldiered on, putting our right foot in front of the left, one heavy step at a time. If we can do five hours, what is 15 more minutes? Ah the coming glory of standing on the peak of Ledang.
Thirty minutes later, we were still climbing and the peak was yet to be seen, smelled or felt. Once again an exasperated request was made to the still strong and steady looking guide - how much longer uncle? "15 more minutes". And this time he added "I promise". We mustered what was left of our ebbing strengths, carried on, and sure enough, were at the top in the next 15 minutes.
After our high fives and obligatory photos, one of us asked the guide, so did you not really know that the peak was almost 2 hours away? His response was that he in fact knew exactly how far the peak was, but if he had told us the truth, we might have given up. Under the circumstance, it was the code among guides, it seems, to always say "15 more minutes", as that was the maximum length of time that an exhausted climber would decide to still carry on in the hope that it will all be over after that!
When musing over a name for this site, I recalled that thoughtful piece of advice - Fifteen More Minutes. It certainly applies to all of us who need that phycological boost to carry on climbing when our legs and lungs are screaming to give up. A mental shot-in-the-arm.
Incidentally, a few months after Ledang, we were climbing Gunung Besar Hantu, and due to a number of incidents along the way, I was exhausted and trailing badly, even before we hit our second camp. I asked the guide how far the next camp was, and he responded that it was still far away. That drained all my remaining strength. I really couldn't carry on, especially since there was a ravine in front of me which I have to jump across. I told the guide to go ahead with the rest and leave me. After he left, and after 5 mins of resting, I crawled across the ravine and turned around a bend, and lo and behold the next camp was there! Had the guide told me that the camp was only 2 mins away, I would have persevered. The guides at Ledang are really smart!
So remember, if your friend is tired and asks you how much longer he has to suffer, the correct answer is always Fifteen More Minutes!
Happy hiking, and stay safe!
So near? We can't give up now can we? So once again we soldiered on, putting our right foot in front of the left, one heavy step at a time. If we can do five hours, what is 15 more minutes? Ah the coming glory of standing on the peak of Ledang.
Thirty minutes later, we were still climbing and the peak was yet to be seen, smelled or felt. Once again an exasperated request was made to the still strong and steady looking guide - how much longer uncle? "15 more minutes". And this time he added "I promise". We mustered what was left of our ebbing strengths, carried on, and sure enough, were at the top in the next 15 minutes.
After our high fives and obligatory photos, one of us asked the guide, so did you not really know that the peak was almost 2 hours away? His response was that he in fact knew exactly how far the peak was, but if he had told us the truth, we might have given up. Under the circumstance, it was the code among guides, it seems, to always say "15 more minutes", as that was the maximum length of time that an exhausted climber would decide to still carry on in the hope that it will all be over after that!
When musing over a name for this site, I recalled that thoughtful piece of advice - Fifteen More Minutes. It certainly applies to all of us who need that phycological boost to carry on climbing when our legs and lungs are screaming to give up. A mental shot-in-the-arm.
Incidentally, a few months after Ledang, we were climbing Gunung Besar Hantu, and due to a number of incidents along the way, I was exhausted and trailing badly, even before we hit our second camp. I asked the guide how far the next camp was, and he responded that it was still far away. That drained all my remaining strength. I really couldn't carry on, especially since there was a ravine in front of me which I have to jump across. I told the guide to go ahead with the rest and leave me. After he left, and after 5 mins of resting, I crawled across the ravine and turned around a bend, and lo and behold the next camp was there! Had the guide told me that the camp was only 2 mins away, I would have persevered. The guides at Ledang are really smart!
So remember, if your friend is tired and asks you how much longer he has to suffer, the correct answer is always Fifteen More Minutes!
Happy hiking, and stay safe!
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