Mount Kinabalu Conquered!

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Hello everyone, we have been having a great time in Sabah and the weather has been outstanding ... even the locals that we meet tell us how lucky we have been!

When we first arrived in Kota Kinabalu (KK), we immediately set-up a trip to Mount Kinabalu and the Poring Hot Springs. We spent a few days relaxing in the bustling provincial capital of KK, where we took in some pre-festivities to the approaching Chinese New Year, shopped around the Filipino market, and finally met Jennee, a friend of a former collague who has been our personal tour guide for KK!

So, we set off to Kinabalu National Park and spent a night at the base of Mount Kinabalu before making our ascent. During the first night, we met an extremely friendly couple from Sweden, Sofia and Phillip, who we ended up convincing the parks office to share a mountain guide with because we were "very good friends". Its odd, because unlike climbing in the Rocky Moutains, you are charged for everything at Mount Kinabalu: a park entrance fee, a guide that is required but does little more than walk along behind you, your accomodation that has to be reserved in advance at the park's accomodation (you can't just pitch a tent), etc., so a little different than the simplicity of hiking in the Rockies.

Shortly after receiving a hyped up prepartory briefing the night before our climb we were off to bed as we wanted to get an early start the next morning. We started our first of two days of climbing at about 8:30am with our small day pack and two water bottles and made it to the overnight point at Laban Rata and the other basic, shared accomodation by 11:30am. We both thought it was a joke of a hike (hardly a mountain climb really), and were quite comfortable in knowing that we have hiked up much more challenging mountains before in the Rockies. BUT, that was only after the first day.

We spent the afternoon at our basic accmodation, getting to know Sofia and Phillip more, as well as some other "climbers", including our two roomies that happened to be two dudes from Hungary ... for those of you that don't know, that is where my grandparents were from and I have always wanted to go to Hungary ... so, it was a great opportunity to talk to other people about their travels and share with others what we had done in Borneo and them the same. The only downside is that we are now faced with the problem of getting another two months off of work so we can fit everything into what we want to do ... just kidding.

OK, so back to the climb. After a restless sleep in Laban Rata that was very noisy and bunkbed accomodation in a "heated" room that was either freezing or the temperature of a dry sauna, we were up at 2:15am, to have a quick snack and were climbing again to the summit to beat the sunrise. Jon had managed about 1-2 hours sleep at most, being a light sleeper and woken by every bump in the night, and Laura managed to squeeze in 4-5 hours of sleep (but seriously, Laura has slept through house alarms before at home so no surprise).

The climb for the second day started much like the climb ended on the first day; the only difference was we were now hiking up without Sofia, who decided she would not make the ascent to the summit, Phillip had a touch of what we think was altitude sickness, and we were all quite tired (luckily, the soreness and stiffness had not set in for Jon and Laura, but that would come).

The ascent quickly turned out to be more challenging with smooth rock faces with steep inclines; so steep that they have set-up ropes to grab onto and pull your body up with your arms so you don't fall backwards. It was actually a relief after awhile to be able to use your arm muscles to provide your legs a little bit of a rest. Our group set a pretty good pace heading to the summit and we were able to reach our final destination by 4:30am, where there was only two other dudes that had started a little earlier and were playing with the rats. We had no idea there would be rats at the summit, but one apparently jumped on the shoulder of one of the guys that were there. We never saw any personally, but just knowing they were there creeped out Laura and many others who were poised to shreak out while waiting for the sunrise.

After several minutes, one after another, the line of headlamps that shone from other climbers reached the peak and everyone was positioning themselves to keep warm and maintain a nice view of what would be a great sunrise as the morning was crystal clear. The sun began to rise at about 5:30 and was over by about 6:15am. It was very cold at the peak, but nothing compared to the Rockies, as there was no snow and it was still not below freezing. That said, we were still in layers of clothing including our hooded sweaters and our light windbreakers, which was a lot less than others, who were wearing belaclavas and gloves. After snapping numerous photos of the beautiful sunrise and looking around in amazement of our surroundings from the 4095m summit (we could actually see the city of KK off in the distance), we started to make out descent, and that's when the pain really set in of our past two days of climbing. It was amazingly different though climbing down in the light than going up in the dark, and we often stopped to look around in amazement at our surroundings, and in a little bit of disbelief that we had actually managed to climb up some points.

We stopped again at Laban Rata for a descent breakfast before making the rest of the painful descent downward, which was a lot slower than we all thought would be, but we still made it down before noon, in great time to arrange our transportation to the Poring Hot Springs ... but that's for another entry!

To those who may be reading our blog and have sent us messages with questions, please be patient and we'll e-mail you back on our return regarding other details as we have many tips regarding our travels and would love to share them with you!

Time for breakfast everyone, so we'll try and make another entry later today!

Love,

Jon and Laura

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