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Well, we've made our camp at the base of the route on sunday. First night we arrived everything broke; MSR stove has fuel leak and won't pressurise, water bladder exploded, steve's hammock was unusable due to a manufacturing fault and is as useful as a fruit basket and finally the portaledge fly sprung a random leak.

Though fortunately everything is sorted now. Bad luck comes in tens ; )

The first couple pitches to the big ledge are complete. Climbing is nice and steep and hooks have been used as protection. We can now see the massive roof in clear view half way up the face and some decent crack systems leading to the left edge.

Today we're gathering water and hoping to get another couple pitches underway. There have been some storms brewing in the South China Sea, so the weather has been touch-and-go.

We should have some pictures of the route in the next few days. We can't actually get reception at camp or on the face at the minute.

From the portaledge of Matt and Steve,

Thanks for reading!

July 24th 2009

Matt beneath the villa sized boulder on the way up the main approach to the Dragon's Horns. All our kit has been brought up via this path and while the boulder marks the halfway point and a chance to catch a light breeze it is also home to many mosquitos and large spiders.

We have just had a heavy rain storm here and while it serves to charge the rivers and make water collection easier all our gear is up on the route as well as two ropes and is now probably soaked if it hasn't been struck by lightning...

All gear is wet but in place and we head up today to camp and begin fixing lines over the next couple of days to a large vegetated ledge above which the proper climbing starts. And load humping obviously.

Steve/Matt

Got enough gear?

Hopefully this picture uploads successfully. Below is picture of Steve with all our sacks loaded up in Mersing prior to catching the ferry to Tioman. Fourteen or so bags and 200kg of weight.

More pictures to come in the next few days! Please continue to check regularly.

Thank you to those who sent us confirmation that our blog is working ; )

July 20th - 23rd

Although only a few days in to the trip it has been a very busy period. So far we have shuttled 40kg each of climbing gear, food, water and basic camp kit to the base of our intended route. A 30m abseil (now fixed) down a loose drainage gully, a fair amount of chopping, fixing lines over a couple boulder ruckles and finally 30m of 4th class terrain seems to have brought us to where we need to be. We are aiming for a prominent roof half way up that appears to have 200m of good cracks above it to the summit.

Wild life so far hasn't presented any major problems other than a monkey throwing a branch at Steve and an aggressive species of ant that seem to gnaw at slings and rope... Dwarf shrew-like creatures hide under boulders, termite nests and spider webs litter the base of the Horns and bees are a nuisance at the start of the first pitch.

We're hoping to reach a vegetated terrace over the next couple days and then beyond that more sustained climbing should present itself.

If you have successfully read this post it would be greatly appreciated if you could send us an e-mail at matthewtraver@hotmail.com to confirm it has been uploaded alright. We aren't sure the mobile network is currently supporting MMS and E-mail!

Thanks for reading,

Matt/Steve.

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Support from DMM Wales

For nearly three decades DMM have been a leading manufacturer of climbing equipment based in Llanberis, North Wales - all their products are manufactured in the U.K.

DMM kindly provided us with a discount on their range of products. This has enabled us to ensure that we have the most functional and reliable climbing equipment for our trip. We purchased some 250m of static rope, 140m of lead (dynamic) line and various metal work - essential for our intended route.

Thank you DMM.

Please check out their website www.dmmwales.com or follow their Twitter at http://twitter.com/dmmclimbing.

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Testing blog update via SMS - please ignore.

About Mersing

Mersing is a medium sized port town populated by 21,000 people, situated on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The primary function of the town is in acting as a gateway to the nearby islands, not only Pulau Tioman, but others such as Pulau Besar, P. Rawa, P. Tinggi, P. Sibu, P. Pemanggil and smaller islands within the Seribuat Archipelago.

Once a smaller town that relied on fishing and apparently once used by the British/Dutch forces, it has seen a healthy expansion from the advent of tourism, yet it still seems to maintain an aura of a Malaysia two or three decades in the past. Aside from tourism, the Indian/Chinese/Malay restaurants and numerous shops appear to keep the local economy moving steadily, with the outskirts seeing small-scale tin mining and rubber plantations. There seems to be a steady and relaxed pace of life here, the local Malays live peacefully amongst the lively fusion of their instrinstic culture and the influence of more Westernised elements.

Image courtesy of Yiping Lim on Flickr

If one should ever visit Mersing, be sure to check out the main mosque in the centre of town, the numerous eateries along the main roads and down the side streets and wander along the fringes of the Mersing River.

Next stop, Pulau Tioman - where we will take a ferry from Mersing to Genting on Tioman, then Nipah (a few kilometres down the coast) then grab a speedboat to Mukut Village.

Thanks for reading,

Matt.

Arrival in Mersing.

Just in case any one is actually reading this blog (and thanks if you are) - I have arrived in Mersing, the port town for the ferry to Tioman Island. I'm awaiting on Steve to turn up on Saturday, so that should mean we will depart for Tioman on Sunday - nice!

Have been looking at the various sorts of food available to purchase, along with certain essential supplies such as parangs (machetes), tarps, mosquito coils etc. We will aim to purchase 5 weeks of food and some 150 litres worth of soda bottles - should make for some burdensome but enjoyable load hauling.

Regards,

Matt

Support from CarePlus

CarePlus has provided us with an extensive range of their first aid/travel/health products for our trip, ranging from venom extractors, sam splints, tailed hats, anti-septic gel, dressings and a bunch of other essential items.

They provide a comprehensive and virtually all-you-could-need product range - Please check out their website http://www.careplus.eu/ for more information.

Thank you!

Beast Products - Equipment shots.

Below are some shots of the equipment manufactured at Beast Products (http://www.beastproducts.com/) for our upcoming trip - 2 haul sacks and 2 rope buckets and also a couple nice T-shirts with printed logos for all those that have supported and sponsored us.

Striking picture of the Dragon's Horns.

Just came across this very high quality picture of the Dragon's Horns on BlueVentures Flickr site (www.flickr.com/photos/blueventures). The photo clearly shows the South West Pillar (the division between light and shade).

There appears to be a lot of nice other looking lines out to the left, the massive scoop, the 'Heart' of the Dragon's Horns, I guess you could say looks like it could be 100 metres of overhanging terrain. Would be awesome to get up in to that feature, eh?

Only two days to go.

Yikes!

Assisting Blue Ventures with scientific data collection on the Dragon's Horns.

We've just received confirmation from Katie Yewdall, project coordinator for one of Blue Venture's projects, which is taking place on Tioman Island. By pure chance we stumbled across the Blue Ventures website and saw that they would be running their scientific programme/projects the same time myself and Steve are out there... so naturally we got in touch and it has now been finalised with Katie that we will be aiming to do some basic documentation of the plants/flowers/leaves existing on the face of the Dragon's Horns itself.

We will be taking pictures of what we come across, as well as collecting some small samples for them - these will then be cross-checked with their existing database to see if we come up with anything new. Who knows, maybe we might find something worthwhile for them? Regardless, it will be great to help them out and contribute to their body of knowledge concerning the species on Tioman Island and the Dragon's Horns itself.


Please check out Blue Venture's website http://www.blueventures.org/ or http://www.blueventures.org/malaysia-expeditions for more specific information on what they are planning to do.