Penang Hills and Trails - Tiger Hill Ridge Path
Air Itam Dam - Tiger Hill - Air Itam

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a long Grade 3 walk. There is are two (!) sketch maps at the bottom showing the route followed. Click here for a list of the known PBA rain gauges.

Please visit my Penang buses page for information on accessing the starting point.

We haven't done much hiking from the Air Itam Dam for a long time as we hate the walk up to it from the village. However, Mike Gibby and we were keen to walk the Tiger Hill Ridge path and since he has a car that solved the problem. Mike also suggested the route down which allowed us to avoid the main hill and the need to use the expensive railway. We'd had quite a long hike the day before, so we were perhaps a bit slower than normal but we were on the go for some 7 hours.

It was a clear day with a dry wind and the dam looked superb. We crossed it turned left and just after the gate closed to road traffic turned right and started climbing the road to the 5 way junction.

Near the bottom is a rain gauge (RG 35), earlier we had talked with some PBA workers who told us where we might find the staff who are in charge of the rain gauges. That will be an interesting visit no doubt, probably much more rewarding than talking with the state Forestry Department who are in charge of these yellow signs.

It's an unexceptional climb, mainly shady but it more than does the job. The highlight was this magnificent fungal display on a dead tree. At the top we took a water stop, it had actually taken us an hour and a half since parking the car, but we don't race like some groups.

We turned right along one of Yuehong's 'More Like This Paths', we'd come along it in the opposite direction climbing out of Tiger Hill Valley a couple of weeks ago. This time however, we would maintain our height and turn right along the ridge, I knew the first part of the path was in good condition as I had been down it in the opposite direction earlier in the week when visiting Bukit Elvira. It's an easy enough turn to spot where the valley path starts to descend, with the egregious red and white plastic, impossible to miss. We got so fed up with the stuff that we removed most of it, it's not as though the trail is blessed with junctions, there are just three between here and the main hill.

It was the first time along here for Mike and Yuehong and like me they found it excellent. I described it as a civilised version of the Bukit Laksamana path. Yuehong doesn't have a vote on that but Mike agreed. So, just over an hour after we left the 5 way junction we were at rain gauge 29. 

Ahead the path was an unknown quantity, we had only web reports to go on but most importantly, it wasn't actually a ridge path any more, it would pass below Tiger Hill on its east side as the summit is not open to the public having a PBA storage tank. It was definitely not a difficult trail, but it was narrower and there were more trees down across it, all easily passed.

Slightly alarmingly, the path started to zig-zag down and I was concerned that we had passed the critical junction without realising it. However, after 40 minutes Mike announced we had reached a junction, we could turn right for the Air Itam Dam should we so desire. Actually this was the junction Yuehong and I had been to 3 years earlier when we were on our 'Course of Leeches' walk, but I didn't think it a good idea to remind her of that experience which for twenty minutes had been marriage threatening. At the time there was a rotten tree with 5 signs on it, but tree and signs had disappeared. 

It wasn't difficult to decide to turn left and maintain height. I waited for the repeat ambush, but it never happened, it was the dry season and the leeches must have been away on holiday. Twenty minutes after leaving the junction we arrived at the far west end of the Moniot Road. After 3½ hours of hiking it was time for a fruit snack and in my case some proper refreshment.

Ahead was a section which we hadn't done before - last time we turned left and fled to the Summit Road, but Mike knew it well. It seems that there had been a landslip at some stage because we had to go up and down at the start, thereafter it was generally almost flat and very shady, in fact a delightful wide path. Along the way, we passed what Mike suggested might have been a 19th century horse trough from the time when riding out on the hill was all the fashion.

It was almost too good to be true, we passed a couple of huge stands of bamboo and that was more or less that... 

Below us was the 1880s bungalow 'Mon Sejour' which certainly looks more impressive from above than it did from below when we did the traverse from the Sitavana Vihara back in December 2012. Round the bend as advised previously by Mike, a bridge had collapsed. He did the sensible thing, we couldn't resist doing a balancing act on the wooden beams.

The question now was how to get down the hill in a civilised manner and Mike's answer was to use 'Chili'. I had seen only a web report but he had been up it maybe a dozen times with a walking group. However, he had never been down it because they always take the train instead. The path joined the access road to Mon Sejour and the Brothers' Bungalow but mercifully not for long. It appears that Moniot Road continues ahead of Yuehong in the second picture.

'Chili' heads off left, basically it's a concrete motorbike trail, it would be hard to miss even without the egregious signs for a forthcoming mountain bike event. It would be nice to think that the organisers will remove them afterwards along with all the equally revolting red and white plastic tape which festooned the path too. I wouldn't bet on it though, tidying up your own mess is not part of the local culture here. We have no plans to revisit, but Mike will and I'll be happy to tell the world I was wrong if it all vanishes soon. The paint on the road will, however, take many years to disappear.

We did like this first part of Chilli, it's quite shady in between the increasingly frequent vegetable farms.

This is the key junction, we had been here recently coming from the Middle Station (ahead) and continuing down to the right, it's not one of our recommended descents. I'll skip the next bit, it does have all the wrong kind of views but for us the best bit is this impressive tree within the 'buffer zone' next to the railway, left no doubt so the tourists can't see what a total mess this part of the hill is in.

Mike and I share an interest in the history of the Hill Railways and after crossing at the station, I showed him some old rails from the first railway and then he showed me some of the sleepers. It was all a bit embarrassing, both of us had separately walked past them more than once without noticing them.

I'm not sure we had actually properly guestimated the likely time necessary to complete the walk, certainly we had now been out for just over 6 hours. Mike's car was at the Dam and he would need a taxi to recover it. He gallantly volunteered to go on ahead so we could coax our aching joints down to the Bats' Cave Temple and Hill Railway Road. This is the key junction, there is a full account in a previous descent here ('The 39 Steps') if you need it.

Such was our speed differential that we had barely sat down at the bottom when Mike appeared, after 7 hours we needed a 'high tea' and Mike knew just the place.

Thanks to Peter van der Lans for pushing me into the initial ridge walk and Mike for providing the 'exit strategy' and excellent company. He doesn't know it but even Yuehong is too polite to shout at me in front of him which is a very nice bonus as well.

Altogether, It's a seriously good walk and when I have time I'll add it to the list of Selected Walks.