Lata Khong

Last month I organised a party for my waterfall friends. It was a very pleasant gathering, we had nice food and of course we talked a lot about waterfalls..:-).

The idea came up to have another meeting, but then at a waterfall. An easy one, no hiking required. One option would be Lata Khong near Karak. As it was a long time ago that I visited this fall for the last time, I wanted to do a recce first.

Lata Khong, a waterfall in the Dua Olak river has an interesting history. In 2003 I met Khong and as were both interested in waterfalls, soon we went out for waterfall hikes. One of these hikes started from KG Sg Dua Olak, March 2005. We had received GPS info about a very remote waterfall in that region. In the left image you see how extremely remote it was (the red trail)! Soon it became clear that this was too hard-core 4WD for us. But Orang Asli told Khong that there was a nearby waterfall, quite close to the road! And that is how we “discovered” what is now called Lata Khong!

waterfall

We were quite excited about this discovery, and soon I went back, a few times even. Once with Khong and a few weeks later with another friend, Edward, camping overnight at the fall. It was during this trip that we were wondering about the name of the fall. Of course locals have a name for it, but we didn’t know. So, shall we name it Lata Khong? It started as a joke, but even now the fall is still known as Lata Khong!

Here are pictures taken during my trips. The last picture is a recent one. The fall still looks the same, but the surroundings have changed. Forest has been cleared, access roads have been tarred.

And as was to be expected, more people have discovered the waterfall. When we organise an outing, we probably will not be alone.

Access is easy, you can park your car at the tar road and walk the last part. We decided to explore the tar road until the end and were quite unhappy when we noticed that wide logging roads continued from there. If logging starts upstream, the water quality will go down..:-( And according to the signboard logging is completely illegal. But this is Malaysia….

So not all news is good, but the conclusion of our recce is, that the waterfall is still suitable for an outing. I will plan it soon and then update this blog

Hear are two more GE screenshots. The left image shows how far we have explored, the right one shows how detailed nowadays the GE imagery is, with Lata Khong and the upper fall visible!

Capture

detail

 

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