Article

An ascent of Gunong Benom from Raub

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

An ascent of Gunong Benom from Raub

Strugnell and Willbourn’s 1931 account documents a ten-day expedition (May 1930) to summit Gunong Benom (6,916 ft), the highest peak of an isolated mountain group in central Pahang, by a route from Raub that had never before been successfully completed. The article serves simultaneously as a field narrative of considerable physical difficulty, a geological survey of the mountain’s rock sequence, and a botanical record that included several specimens possibly new to science.

Summary

The expedition was motivated by both geographical first and scientific collection. Strugnell had reached 5,500 feet on a preliminary trip in September 1929 and identified the ridge leading to the summit, but had been forced to retreat with a poisoned hand. The 1930 party of thirty-four—reduced to twenty-five after desertions and sickness—carried seventy gantangs of rice and a full complement of geological and botanical equipment. The ascent from Raub proceeded along a compass-bearing through increasingly difficult terrain of granite core-boulders (gugup), salt-lick country, and eventually the mossy forest above 5,750 feet, where true tree growth ceased and the landscape became a saturated world of Dacrydium elatum, Leucopogon malayanum, and thick moss coatings on stunted stems. The summit was reached on the fifth day, but clouds obscured the view, a fact that proved consequential for the descent.

The descent constituted the article’s most dramatic narrative thread. Unable to identify a descending ridge from the summit, the party lost all track signs within hours and were forced to navigate by compass through precipitous boulder-strewn valleys. A critical error—following the Sungai Terbau rather than the Sungai Lompat, two rivers to the north—went undetected for three days until the party reached a Sakai kampong at Kuala Terbau. The authors describe the physical toll in unflinching terms: cold camps in narrow valleys where night-draughts kept the coolies coughing all night, six days in the same clothes, sandfly attacks that covered their soup in scalded corpses, and a coolie who did not reappear until after 6 p.m. with a swollen foot.

The scientific content is substantial. Geologically, the authors delineate a north-south belt of syenite and augite-syenite on the western slopes (1,200–2,500 ft), intruded by hornblende-granite, giving way to ordinary granite at higher altitudes and to banded schist (metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rocks) on the eastern side at 2,600 feet. They note a remarkable windblow on the eastern flank where a hurricane or whirlwind had stripped an hour’s travel of steep ridge-side, destroying trees on sedimentary rock where root-hold was insufficient. Botanically, the herbarium list includes several specimens flagged as possibly new species, and the authors offer a biogeographical hypothesis that isolated chengal trees found at 3,000 feet may be relics of a period over 10,000 years ago when the Peninsula was submerged.

Key Findings

  • The summit of Gunong Benom (6,916 ft) was reached on the morning of 23 May 1930, the fifth day of the journey; the barometric pressure at the top was 23 inches (p. 16).
  • The party carried seventy gantangs of rice and each coolie bore approximately forty pounds in a rotan ambong; the rate of pay was 70 cents per day with food deducted (p. 13).
  • Fresh rhinoceros (badak sumbu) tracks were found on the ridge at 5,500 feet and again at 6,500 feet, indicating the presence of the species at high altitude on Benom (pp. 15–16).
  • The descent followed the Sungai Terbau rather than the Sungai Lompat, an error of two river valleys that was not discovered until the party reached a Sakai kampong at Kuala Terbau on the ninth day (pp. 17, 19).
  • True mossy forest was confirmed above 5,750 feet, with Dacrydium elatum and Leucopogon malayanum as dominant ridge species; in sheltered valleys at 6,400 feet, trees reached forty to sixty feet in height, contradicting Evans’s earlier claim that the summit was covered only in low scrub (p. 20).
  • The herbarium collection included at least four specimens identified as possibly new species, including Pygeum sp. (5,600 ft), Argostemma sp. (5,500 ft), Ardisia sp. (5,500 ft), and Dracaena sp. (5,000 ft) (pp. 25–26).

Conclusion

Strugnell and Willbourn establish that Gunong Benom, despite its reputation for evil spirits and its reputation as an inaccessible peak, is a mountain of geologically straightforward structure—granite core flanked by metamorphic margins—whose principal difficulty lies not in altitude but in the total absence of reliable tracks above 3,000 feet and the disorienting effect of cloud cover on navigation. Their account effectively closes the chapter on Benom as an unclimbed peak from the west, while the botanical and geological observations provide a baseline reference for the mountain’s ecology and geology that remained authoritative for decades.

Context

References