June 17th and 18th
Mount Kinabalu (retrospective)
The climb to Mt Kinabalu is 8.7km and apparently one of the easiest peaks to summit, accessible even for ppl with an average level of fitness. Schoolchildren and seniors are announced by the guidebook as able to make this climb which reputably means that I the intrepid backpacker should have no issues…however having played hockey against 14yrs and watched elderly Chinese women stride past my panting lumbering self on the way up the peak I was in no way confident that the success of school kids and seniors in any way implies that I will reach the summit.
Given I have never understood the drive of mountaineers, pant breathlessly when faced with more than 15 stairs and had not done anything vaguely resembling preparation I awoke on the morning of June 17th more than a little confused and frightened about what I had signed myself up for. Each climbing group must have a guide and after looking us over the guide desk assigned us a man of advancing age with an impressive beard. After a short bus ride to the start of the mountain trail we pick up our wooden walking sticks and after pausing to admire the times of the 2009 mt kinabalu challenge winner (a mere 2 hours 20minutes) we begin the six kilometer hike to Laban Rata our overnight rest stop.
The guidebook states that the climb is 97% uphill, something I had apparently glossed over when deciding that climbing It was a good idea, very soon it becomes apparent that 3% of level hiking over 8,7km is in no way shape or form sufficient. Anusha and I quickly established we walked at differing paces and I found myself wandering ahead alone as I was certain that the only way I would reach the top was to get as much done as I possibly could as quickly as possible (bear in mind my ‘quick’ pace is still sufficiently slow as to allow a large proportion of climbers to overtake me, however thankfully unlike my last ten km run, none of them were dressed as fairies). The first three kilometers pass uneventfully as I play a continual game of overtaking a bunch of girls from KL only to have them overtake me. Every 500m a sign announces your achievement of having climbed higher and despite my desperate need for validation that my lumbering was getting me somewhere I still managed to miss a few of the signs and panic that I in fact had ceased moving at all. Thankfully it turns out that even a snail’s pace will move you forward and I made my way past the 4km sign only to be confronted with a barren slope of rockface with no obvious footholds that signaled that what had come before was only a taste of the terrain to come. Thankful that I wasn’t wearing crocs or socks and sandals as some other misguided trekkers, I still managed to slip and slide over the rocky terrain as my tiredness began to wear my already ragged breathing down. The last kilometer saw me climbing at a pace that can only be described as pre-global warming glacial although thankfully by this stage other hikers were equally slow and only the porters remained as a contrast to my staggered pace. As Laban Rata (the reststop) has no connecting roads all supplies are carried in by porters who leap from step to step with unbridled energy despite the giant packs of supplies upon their narrow shoulders. The porters are mostly young men however women and oddly children also rush past carrying up to 80kgs of supplies or other trekkers backpacks.
Laban Rata was finally reached around 2pm and as I sat down to a late lunch and hot water (no tea as it was obscenely expensive…although in fairness anything that was bought up 6km of mountain track deserves something of a price hike) I was soon to discover my trek was not yet over. Anusha and I had booked the unheated dorm being as it was the only available space remaining, I had been a little concerned that the lack of heating would be an issue but I was assured plenty of blankets were provided, what was not clarified was that the unheated dorm was another ten minute trek from laban rata. If there is one way to guarantee murderous rage it is to blithely announced to an exhausted, sweaty hiker armed with a large stick that the accommodation is a further uphill trek. Thankfully due to my immense self control and utter exhaustion I merely nodded and slowly (very slowly) made my way to our overnight accommodation.
The next morning at two thirty a.m. we arranged to meet our guide outside our accommodation so as to avoid any extra hiking and began the 2.7km trek to the summit. Anusha who decided to give the morning hike a try despite altitude sickness soon succumbed to dizziness and headed back to our dorm. I continued and discovered that I do not in any way shape or form enjoy hauling myself up ropes, the first kilometer of the day was a series of steep unrelenting steps and rocks before a rope section that for someone unfit and portly was an unique form of torture (although thankfully in the dark I could not see the steep drops besides the ropes I was struggling with). Oddly despite my frequent questioning of our mountain guide regarding if the hiking got easier he did not give a straight answer which disheartened me somewhat and I resolved to push myself until I could push no further but began to accept I may not make my goal of the summit. As we hit 7km you pass a small hut where a man checks your mountain pass and surprisingly the terrain began to flatten, my pacing improved and the next 1.7km passed relatively uneventfully until I found myself clambering up the rocky peak to overlook the scenery of Mt Kinabalu from Low’s peak!!!!
I arrived just in time for sunrise and watched the mountain be slowly lit by the sun as the low cloud clung to it’s sides. I managed to convince some of my fellow hikers to take a number of unflattering pictures of myself wrapped around the summit sign ecstatic that despite sounding like a wounded rhinoceros and frankly moving like one I still managed to make the peak!. As my breakfast had been an apple and a few biscuits and I hadn’t much sleep I blame this along with the exhaustion from the hike and the lack of oxygen as why I chose to leave my dorky bucket hat and headtorch on in each photo.
I think what is generally avoided in discussions of mountain hiking is that once you reach the summit you have to walk all the way down again, logically this makes sense but somehow in the rush to reach the peak it never fully factors into one’s mind. Standing at the top of mt Kinabalu it dawned on me that I would have to now walk 8.7km downhill and that this might actually be worse than the uphill. The first downhill section passed quickly and then as if realizing I’d had a pretty good run on the mountain, it began to rain. The rain was light and brief, just sufficient to create a non-stick surface over the mountain. I soon discovered that going down the ropes was about as fun as going up and that the stairs covered in a gloss of rain where far less enjoyable on the way down, surprisingly I managed only one spectacular fall and soon I found myself back at laban rata with only 6km to climb down.
I met Anusha and after a languid breakfast we began our descent which as expected soon proved almost as bad as the ascent. The slippery rocks and general lack of balance and coordination made it slow going and soon the distance markers I had relied on so much on the way up to convince me I was still moving became equally important. I had expected the descent to be quicker than the climb and was surprised to find it wasn’t that much different and that soon my knees began to groan and whimper in overuse. Even on the final stretch with just a kilometer to go I could not summon the enthusiasm to move faster and it was only as we exited and returned our walking sticks that I realized we were done and with that a new wave of energy carried me forward.
The days following Mt Kinabalu can only be described as blissfully inactive, we returned to Kota Kinabalu and our base camp of explorer backpackers. Staggering like old women and groaning with each stair climbed and descended we made our way to a number of massages and movies before booking our flights to Miri to hit up Niah Caves.
