Frasers Hill takes its name after a legendary trader-adventurer, Louis James Fraser, who was operating a tin ore trading station in the forested Titiwangsa Range between Pahang and Selangor at the end of the 19th century. In the late 1880s, Louis James Fraser was last seen trudging along a beaten jungle path connecting Tras and Kuala Kubu, hauling a team of mules laden with crude tin ore. No one has seen him after that and his disappearance has remained a mystery.

In 1917, a friend Bishop C.J. Ferguson-Davie of Singapore and another, Reverend A.B. Champion of Selangor, went on a holiday ramble in the hills on the border of Pahang and Selangor and at the same time to look for the missing Fraser. However, the eluding Scotsman was never found but instead the two clergymen found that within 5 miles of the Gap, on the main trunk road between Pahang and Selangor, there was an area which seemed eminently suitable for a hill station and which could be rapidly, easily and cheaply developed.

Coincided with a popular longing for hill stations in Malaya in those days due to an increase in the European population in South-east Asia, the British Colonial Office in Singapore was indeed very impressed with the Bishops report and recommendations, and a substantial allocation was immediately approved to open up Bukit Fraser. Earlier however, there was a tentative plan to open up Gunung Tahan, but the project was later abandoned due to the enormous costs of laying the railways tracks and furthermore, the northern parts of the mountain range lie in the State of Kelantan which was not part of the Federated Malay States.

Sir George Maxwell, the British High Commissioner of Malaya, wrote in 1925 that Frasers Hill will always be the most exquisite and most dainty hill station in Malaya, and in a few years to come we will see great developments of enterprise in building bungalows there.

Today, more than 8 decades later, Frasers Hill is a thriving little highland resort, perched majestically some 1,300m on the Titiwangsa Range, with progressive developments and yet able to maintain the ambience of its nostalgic past. Cool throughout the year with an average temperature of 21 degrees C to 23 degrees C, the attraction of Frasers Hill as a tourist attraction has not diminished after all these years.

On 25/03/2006, my wife Beng Eng and I joined the Pathfinder Group of Malaysian Nature Society Selangor Branch on the trail to Pine Tree Hill, the highest point of Frasers Hill at about 1,500m above sea level. More than 60 MNS members participated in the outing. We put up a night in Telekoms Malaysias Sri Peninjau Flats and had good food and good fellowship.

On the following day, some members woke up early for a bird-watching session in the vicinity of the Flats. After a sumptuous breakfast, one of the members gave us an enlightening lecture on landfill as a method of solid waste disposal and its related problems.

While the rest of the participants were making their way home, Beng Eng and I decided to put up another night in Frasers Hill in order to explore this hill station more thoroughly. The last time we came up here was a few years ago. We decided to have a bit of English cottage living by getting a room in Ye Olde Smokehouse on the way to Jeriao Waterfall. We had lots of visitors, the feathered type, that is. They were not just found in the garden, but right outside our windows as well. In the morning, the valleys were shrouded by a sea of clouds and the distant mountains in different shades of green and blue presented a most superb panorama. Jeriao Fall was, however, a big disappointment. Its clear and refreshing water had given way to muddy water due to unregulated developments upstream.

Hope you will be able to get a glimpse of what Frasers Hill has to offer from my album.