Advertisement
Published: March 7th 2006
Hey guys! Well I did it!! I climbed Mt Kinabalu. This massive mountain is half the size of Mt Everest “Standing 4,095 metres (13,432 ft) high, it is the highest mountain in South East Asia. With its granite massif dominating the surrounding landscape at the peak, it is often shrouded in mists and clouds. Mount Kinabalu has an awesome mystique all its own. No wonder that long ago, the Kadazan-Dusuns named it ‘Aki Nabalu’ or “home of the spirits of the dead’.” The bus picked me up from my hotel as 7am and it was a two hour drive out to the National Park, but luckily for me, my Malaysian lady driver was sexy. In my bag I had lots of warm clothes, a raincoat, torch and spare shoes which made it very heavy. I was suppose to take food but stupid me left it at a shoe store the night before, when I ran out to buy emergency sneakers so I didn’t ruin my new Adidas shoes climbing. When I arrived at the National Park I met the boys I was to do the trek with, Stuart (English), Stuart (Scottish) and Brad (New Zealand). Because there were two Stuarts, we
My new best friends
Stuart, Brad, Steve Irwin, Me.decided to call the English one Steve (Irwin) because he was wearing an akubra, hiking boots and a wife beater. Such great guys, loved them. So after a long long wait (as everything always has to be in Asia) we took off up the mountain with the boys agreeing that they would shout me some food seeing as though I lost mine. At the start of the Mountain climb we saw a record board with record times for climbing the mountain. The record for men was just over 2 hours!!! WHAT THE? It is taking us two whole days! And that was the time to go up and come back down.
WHAT WAS I THINKING…… I cant even walk up one flight of stairs without being puffed!! After the first 500m I was rooted, I could hardly breath and wanted to turn back. Each step on the way up was nearly a foot high, so each step was more a climb. Luckily for me Stuart was just as unfit and kept stopping with me.
At the 1.5 km point it was worse and the break at the hut was longer. These huts had a toilet for hikers and a small
Stairs
Nothing is bad for you in moderation... hut with a sign showing you how far you had to go. At this stop we all decided to have two pain killers and an anti nausea tablet in advance to stop us getting altitude sickness, but instead it made us high and we ran the third km, singing, laughing and Stuart seeing things. By the third km, just after I started saying how easy this, was the tablet must have worn off and as the air became thinner my legs and lungs started to ache. We all started to whinge and bitch. “Oh my god this is f***ked, I’m not going to make it”. I know 4km does not seem like much but picture it ALL up hill with a heavy back pack, mosquitoes and the jungle. . How do I make you realize how painful this was…. Well Imagine the most exhausted you have ever been from exertion, now times that by ten, now thin out your air, put on a heavy bag, add a headache plus hunger and stomach pain and imagine you cant stop walking you must keep going. Painful?? Well you are close.
We saw some pretty funny things on the way up, a
More Stairs
What did I tell you about moderation... sixty five year old man over take us, Malaysian people with 80kg bags pass us twice to drop things off at the guest house, some pretty bright man-leggings, a man dressed in pointy shoes, tight jeans and a polo shirt with no bag hiking up, looking like he was on his way out to a club. It was beautiful scenery though, the valleys, clouds, waterfalls, the people and the jungle. But this was all very hard to appreciate when you are buggered and can’t speak or smile as even a smile would probably take more energy away from you which you need to save to make it up. The whole way we could not see how far we had climbed or views as we were above the clods and it was to misty. But as we came up a flight of stairs (rocks) the clouds parted and we saw how high we were in the sky and the tip of Mt Kinabalu, it was incredible. The view gave me more will power to keep climbing as it showed us how far we had already climbed. I was listening to music on the way up and without this I don’t think
Stuart
These are the signs telling us how far we had to go. I would have made it. When I was close to giving up a song would come on and inspire me to keep going.
Well after six long hours, probably the longest of my life, we could see the guest house ahead and the 3,100m high restaurant with the Summit (tip of the mountain) behind it. AMAZING. Even though the guesthouse was only one hundred metres away it was so hard to keep going, I think your body starts to shut down when it sees the end. We made it. We had to stay in this guest house to acclimatize for the mornings climb and to rest. Fine with me.
So we watched sun set, beautiful, ate some soup and went to bed. The room was heated luckily because it was ridiculously cold. It was really hard to sleep because of the altitude. Hard to explain, a headache nausea and your whole body just does not feel right at all.
So after a rough sleep I woke at two am in the dark ready to walk up the summit still not feeling right in the belly. It was cold at first but then got very warm because of
When the clouds open..
This is when we first saw how far we had climbed. the exercise. Now this was hard, it was pitch black and we were all so sore from the day before and the air kept getting thinner and thinner the higher we got. I had to stop every forty meters just to breathe so the two boys went ahead and Stuart stayed with me because he was struggling as well. These stairs were a lot steeper and at certain parts we had to abseil up really steep parts which was better for me because I could use my arms more instead of my legs. It was so hard and I tried to keep going so bad to make sunrise at six fifteen. After two km of pain and about fifty breaks we made it to the top JUST as the sun was rising. I didn’t exactly make it to the summit’s tip, which was only up about twenty metres from where we were, but were I collapsed was just fine with me. I MADE IT. Couldn’t believe were I was, it felt as though I was on the top of the world, I just wish I had my baby here to hold me and share it with me. All I could
Crikey!
Stuart being Steve Irwin. see was clouds and a bright orange sun rise and open up the sky to see green valleys below. Freezing cold and out of breath it was the second most beautiful thing I have ever seen after my princess.
We stayed up on the mountain for about 45min then started to head back down cause it was too cold, which as you can imaging was very hard. My stomach just still was not right and without any warning as I was abseiling down the mountain I spewed all my dinner up in a cliff face. My guide covered it with a rock and I kept trekking, felt so much better though. We got back at the guest house and we all passed out for two more hours then had to check out at 10.30am so we had to leave. We all bought walking sticks to help us down and it was a long and difficult walk down but a lot easier than going up. We made it down the mountain by two thirty pm after telling everyone who was on the way up that the guesthouse was just around the corner, even though they had just started and we
had finished. We all sat in the van at the bottom of the mountain driving away looking back at and thinking I have never been so proud of myself ever before and now that I have climbed something half the size of Everest I can do anything I set my mind to.
Love Jenny PS Mum I am safe. I wasn’t, but I guess now I am!
PPS that climb got me soo much attention off Erin, loving it so many cuddles and kisses
PPPS Courtney you would be so proud! But you would have run up it!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0348s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Adrian
non-member comment
Jen you are a total Legend!!
How sweet does that look! You did a great job to get up there. I reckon I would have been with you and Stuart, grabbing my burning lungs and wondering how much farther to go all the time. Well done mate, top effort!