Beaten by Mount Kinabalu!

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After an emotional departure from Sepilok, I set off for Kota Kinabalu (KK). KK is so different from Sandakan which was the nearest city to Sepilok. It’s much more westernised, cleaner and modern. I enjoyed KK the last time I visited and I was looking forward to the next few days. A couple of days relaxing and a couple of days trying to climb Mount Kinabalu.

The day of the climb, I was collected from my hotel by Amazing Borneo Tours at 6:20am for the 2.5 hour journey to the start point for my climb. It was quite nice to get out of the city and see parts of Kota Kinabalu I hadn’t seen before. Quite soon in to the drive we were in to the hills with beautiful views over the city and Mount Kinabalu dominating the view covered in cloud around the peak. It was only on seeing the mountain from a distance did I realise what I was about to take on!

We arrived at the meeting point, here you sign your life away to get your permit to climb to the summit. There was quite a bit of waiting around whilst the paperwork was processed. There was the opportunity to rent walking poles and arrange for a porter to carry bags etc. I opted to take my own and go without poles (a decision I did regret on the way back down). I was given a packed lunch of sandwiches, an egg, an apple and some biscuits.

I was assigned my guide, Tino. He looked so young and I later found out he was only 25 and had been working as a guide for 5 years. There were just the two of us which I was thankful for so I could go at my own pace. We set off for the starting point and to look at the map of where we’d be going. Tino explained where I’d be staying overnight and that there were shelters to take a break on the way and where we were likely to stop for lunch. Everything explained... it was time to go.

We set off walking on what I would consider a normal walking path and down a few steps, we very quickly came to a small waterfall which wasn’t spectacular, but, quite pretty all the same. As I continued walking there were very few people around which was nice and as the kilometres increased so did the difficulty. It went from quite nice rocky paths - which at the time I thought were tough because I didn’t know any better! - to steep rocks I was scrambling over. None of this was made any easier by the fact at not quite 2km up, it started to rain and rain A LOT! This obviously made the rocks and slopes very slippery. I had to get the poncho out because it was pouring down. Tino took my bag to make it easier, but, I still really struggled. From that point, it rained the whole way to the rest hut. As we were walking up through the clouds it started to thunder. As most of my friends and family will know; I do not like thunder. At all.

On the way we had stopped for 10 minutes to eat lunch and a couple of stops to have a drink but we were mostly walking/ scrambling/ climbing all day. By the time we got to 4km up, I started to feel the effects of being at altitude, but, not so much. All that training must’ve come in handy before I left the UK. As we were nearing the 6th km mark where the hut was, I really started to count down the metres, I was hurting and I was tired. When we were “almost there” as we had been for quite a while, I turned a corner where the hut was where I would eat dinner later and my biggest nightmare awaited! After all that climbing all day, the biggest and steepest set of steps you’ve ever seen confronted me. Slowly, I made it to the top and to the hut 6 hours and 15 minutes after setting off. I was given a bunk in a dorm room which would be my bed for a few hours. We went back down the steps for dinner which was a buffet style meal with local dishes, plenty of rice and noodles and some veggies and meat dishes. I ate, bought some snacks for the following morning for energy and climbed back up those steps to have a brew and get some rest. Lights out was 8pm ready for a 2am start to set off for the summit.

I got up just before 2 and realised the niggle in my knee was a little worse than it had been when I went to bed. I got ready, had some toast and coffee and got myself ready for the ascent to the summit. I left with my guide at 2:30am in the rain again, we left the hut and went through the summit gate and were on our way up hundreds of steps. There were plenty of people making their way to the top. As I got higher, my knee started to hurt more and more, I got to the first shelter and was in agony and I don’t mind saying, there were tears! I spoke to Tino and made the agonising decision to abandon my attempt to get to the summit and head back. I was devastated, but knew it was going to be a very tough walk down with what I suspected was a damaged ligament. I returned to the hut a little before 5am and went to sleep for a couple of hours.

I got up at 7am and had breakfast of mash and gravy and packed my bag ready for the walk down.

The walk down seemed to take forever, I struggled down the steeper bits unable to properly bed my knee, but at least it wasn’t raining... yet! Around half way down the rain came down again making the journey down even slower because it was slippery. With a lot of help and support from Tino, I made it back for about 2pm to get the bus back to my hotel

I made it to an elevation of 3,580m with the summit being 4,095m - agonisingly close, but, I think I’ll live with it!

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