Exploratory Trail at Kota Damansara Community Forest

On 14 September 2008 a group of 14 people from LMAG have set to explore forest nearby our KL city namely Kota Damansara Community Forest. It is one of the few green lung left within the city vicinity apart from Bukit Gasing in PJ, Taman Tun Dr Ismail & Mont Kiara Forest Reserve, FRIM in Kepong, Bukit Tabur in Taman Melawati and Bukit Apeh in Cheras. The Kota Damansara Community Forest is rich with biodiversity of flora and fauna just like Bukit Gasing in PJ. The forest area was huge and one can hike from Kota Damansara to Bukit Lanjang as well as to Sungai Buloh R&R at Plus NSE Highway area.

All of us set to meet at the starting point at 7.45am instead of the usual place at our Lafuma Bangsar outlet. The guide for the trip was none other than Apip and Ng being the sweeper for the day. We have a light safety briefing and introduction session before we head for the trail at about 8am. The trail started on the left of the community shade and seems to be easy. However within a few minutes the trail was on uphill mode. Some of our members arrived late and we take this opportunity to take five while waiting for them to join in. One thing good about this forest is that you can be access via handphone anywhere as there are adequate signal coverage here in case you are lost or in emergency situation.

The overall trail was easy with slight uphill and downhill mode but one need to be careful as certain places might be slippery and watch out before you grab on the plant as some with torn on it. We make a few stop at certain point where Apip show us some unique parasite plant on top of a huge tree as well as leaf which seems to reflect bright glow during the dark.

With intense development within the forest border, it seems to be some light landslide which caused fallen trees along our trail. At one time, we lost count on how many trees that have fallen along the way and we need to either climb or dunk down to pass through our passage.

There are a lot of trail in this forest and also a favourite spot for Hash runner as well as MNS members for their activities. It happens that the trail we took was also a fresh trail just set by the Hare of one of the Hash club as evident in the trail marker left by them. Since it was a Ramadan Month and some of our friends was fasting, we make our trip short and lasted for only about one and a half hours before we emerged from the forest at the backyard of some residential bungalows at Kota Damansara. We will definitely revisit the place but on a different trail next time, perhaps a longer one. :-)