The Mystery of Cambodia's Highest

Regional discussion and conditions reports for Asia. Please post partners requests and trip plans in the Asia Climbing Partners section.
User Avatar
mrsmith

 
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2006 11:17 am
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post

The Mystery of Cambodia's Highest

by mrsmith » Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:34 am

Help required!

In November 2004 myself and a friend attempted to climb the jungle covered mountain of Phnom Aoral (highest mountain in Cambodia). It's pretty well off the beaten track and as neither of us spoke Khymer just locating the base of it was difficult. We hired some local guides and marched off on the 2 day ascent to the top.

Trusting the guides with navigation through the jungle (as you do) we reached the top early on the second day. Except...it could be anywhere. Aoral's jungle is thick, inhospitable and on it's upper confines dense. From the moment you set foot in the jungle there are no views or breaks in the trees. There are no real maps of the area except inaccurate 1950's French military ones. The guides themselves were notoriuosly lax and trying to extort extra money at every turn. That element of trust justifiably or unjustifiably so was just not there!

So the mystery for me is did we reach the top? It is not a difficult mountain by any stretch of the imagination but would require local knoweldge of the area to find the way to the summit. Like I said we could have been anywhere and I have an icy feeling that they pulled us up short.

Since returning I have scoured the internet looking to find trip reports and more importantly other people's summit photos but have not found anything significant. Neither is this mountain registered on Summit Post (yet!) The only trip report I did find was from May 2005, used the same guides but the photos were unclear. That was from peakbagging.

Is there anyone out there who has climbed this mountain and has photos to share?

I'll be grateful to anyone who solves this!

Return to Asia

 


  • Related topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests