Mountain Hiking Training in Singapore

Singapore is a pretty flat island, the tallest hill on the island is Bukit Timah, elevation 536.8ft, up down is at most 2 miles, but the direct ascend trail is steep. So some people use it for training for mountain hiking in Alps,  North America, ...

To have a mountain hiking training for distance and elevation change, without repeating the same trails, I chose a trail combination to achieve elevation change ~ 1000ft, and the trail length ~ 5 miles.

On June 1st, we went to diary farm nature reserve, hiked on diary farm loop trail to Bukit Timah summit, instead going back to diary farm, we continued hiking downhill from the other side of the hill via Catchment path, cove path, and Taban trail to the foot of Bukit Timah, then turn around going up hill on the steepest path - the main road - to the summit, return to starting point on the diary farm loop trail.

trail combo 1

During our hike we noticed 3 or 4 groups people doing mountain hiking on Diary farm loop trail, up and down, repeatedly. We also noticed quite a few monkeys on the trail side.

on the flat portion of diary farm loop trail

This trail combo is about 4 miles, and elevation gain 920ft (460x2). These numbers were slightly short of my expectation.

Two weeks later, on June 15th, to increase the hiking distance, we started from Rifle Range Nature Reserve, to Bukit Timah summit, going down on diary farm loop trail, and return uphill the loop trail, and summit again, and going down via cove path,  Taban trails, and further out of Bukit Timah nature reserve, and return to rifle range. For this trail combination, we hiked 5 miles (8 km) and 1050 ft elevation gain due to lower elevation at rifle range.

The trails on both trail combos are shaded, and are especially beneficial for hiking on sunny days. They are both good choices for mountain hiking training.

on top of Bukit Timah

paved trail

Notes

1. During these hiking, we took the steepest trail uphill, and less steep but longer trail downhill.

2. One additional advantage of starting from either Dairy Farm nature park or Rifle Range Nature Park, and hiking on the combos, is that parking at the trail heads is typically not a problem, unlike starting at the Bukit Timah Nature reserve, where the parking spot is hard to find most of the time.

3. When we got back to Rifle Range Nature Park, we observed by chance that our hands swollen! This had never happened before even for much longer distance and higher elevation hiking on TMB. Not sure what caused it! Checking internet, Mayo clinic says this is a common occurrence. Hand swelling is a rare occurrence for us. It must be a combination of external and internal factors, temperature, humidity, our intake of water ....