South East Asia's Highest Peak!!!

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A short bus journey (four hours- that's considered short now!) brought us to the gates of the Kinabalu National Park and to our dismay we found that it was very, very cold. Colder than we had anticipated and a lot wetter.

We made our way to our hostel and almost immediately climbed into our bunks to shelter from the chill and prepare ourselves (mentally and physically!) for the days ahead of us. As the night wore on the winds and rain increased, as did my dread of the early morning ascent. Thankfully, when we woke up the weather seemed slightly brighter and a couple of degrees warmer and we set off in better spirits.

We met our guide and received our ID cards at the information center and were briefed on the climb and the base camp. We were told that Laban Rata, the 'town' where we would spend the night, was 5kms from the starting off point and that it would take us between 3-6hrs to reach depending on our level of fitness. We would break there for dinner and a rest and then set off again at 2am to reach the summit for sunrise. In total, it would be a 14km trek and should take about 12-15hrs...

The first kilometer was okay. Much of the trail is steep steps and there are rest stops where you can refill your water bottle every 1km or so. The scenery is very lush and green in the beginning but as you ascend gets thinner and more and more stunted. Towards the end there are huge expanses of rock with only small, hardy trees and moses growing here and there. Unfortunately for us and the other couple of hundred climbers that day, the weather deteriorated as the day went on and soon we found ourselves in thick cloud and soaking wet (for once not sweat!). It was cold but I didn't feel it until we stopped to rest and only then did I really realise how high up we actually were. The clouds obscured any view of Borneo we might have enjoyed and visibility was so bad we really had little to concentrate on but the trail ahead of us. And if the first kilometer was okay... the subsequent ones were not! There was a really tough section between the third and fourth km that made me seriously question what I was doing there and the fifth and final km was a killer. At that point the winds had become so strong that I almost had to crawl along some sections of exposed rock and the cloud cover was so thick that I could scarcely see our hostel in the distance. It wasn't until I eventually heard other climbers ecstatic screams that I realised I must be close to home!

Laban Rata is nothing more than a small collection of hostels and a single restaurant that serve as base camp for the thousands of climbers that tackle Mt. Kinabalu each year but, when I got there, it was heaven.

And I had made it in 4.5hrs.

Freezing cold and delighted with myself I joined everyone else who had beaten me to the top and helped myself to a dozen cups of hot tea and chicken soup. There was no heating in the building so we all sat there in our hats and gloves, hunched over our steaming mugs, laughing about what eejits we all were to have put ourselves through such torture (that last km had punished us all!). It was great. Dinner was a massive all-you-could-eat buffet and three plates of food later I was finally satisfied. A storm was raging outside, with torrential rain, 130km winds and the temperature rapidly dropping and we began to wonder if making it to the summit would be possible after all.

We awoke at 2.30am and got ourselves ready. A group had gathered in the dining room but it was considerably smaller than the one that had been there earlier, obviously there had been some drop outs. We were told that the weather would very likely make the final ascent impossible and, although it was a little better than earlier, that we should only attempt the remaining 2kms if we were really confident in our mountain climbing abilities! Not confident at all, I decided that I hadn't come this far to quit and that I would head out and crawl up if I had to. As it turned out, the park ranger appeared at 3am to say that the summit was closed and sent us back to our beds. Apparently a small river had burst it's banks near the summit and the flood had frozen into a thick layer of ice that would make the climb too dangerous without specialist equipment.

The descent was a hell of a lot easier but still no walk in the park. We were really disappointed not to have made the summit but we still got a certificate for achieving the altitude that we did. We took it slow and tried to enjoy ourselves (wishing good luck to the climbers we passed making the ascent!) and soon found ourselves back at the first gate in about 2hrs.

Having conquered as much of Mt. Kinabalu as we were permitted , we collected Donna and headed back to Kota Kinabalu for a massage and a good feed. I was really pleased with myself and I look forward to framing my certificate on my return home!

Back in KK and still on a trekking high myself and Dec booked our flights out of Sabah and into Sarawak, while Donna and Aisling prepared themselves for their final days in Borneo.

Next Stop: Gunnung Mulu National Park...

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