Climbing Mount Kinabalu

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Mt Kinabalu

Mt Kinabalu, at 4200m, is the highest mountain in South East Asia, hugely spectacular, and a bloody hard climb.

5 July 2006
I was picked up at the ungodly hour of 0630 (I get up late in cities) in Kota Kinabalu for the two hour ride up to 1800m where we would begin the climb. Climbing with me was Vong, a Scot of Chinese descent, and a Malaysian-Singaporean couple who weren’t destined to make it to the top.

We stopped to get registered at the ranger HQ and hotel where I devoured a cheese cake and most of the biggest mountain of fake cream I have seen in my life. I felt a bit nauseous but was glad of the sugar ahead of the supposedly three hour climb to our mountain lodgings at 3200m. At the park entrance we were issued our individually named tags. As usual, they seem to have given up on my family name: I was Peter K.

We picked up our two guides at the ranger HQ. Yup, for four of us, on a well marked trail, for 8.7 km, we need two guides. A few years ago some family got split up on the rock face when clouds rolled in and the daughter got lost and died. Tragic, naturally, but a good excuse for raising employment. Climbers up Mt Kinabalu are now required to hire guides with a maximum ratio of 1:3. Even experienced mountaineers and tour guides who have done the mountain a dozen times now need a guide, which doesn’t cost that much compared to the room rates and is great for the local economy. There are now about a hundred full time dedicated Mt Kinabalu guides. Our two guides reminded me of my porter in Nepal: very friendly, relaxed, good humored, and a part of the experience. I hated spending the money on the exorbitantly priced Mt Kinabalu tourist package, but I didn’t begrudge my guides any of it.

Even at 1800m the temperature was fairly warm and humidity in the forest was up in the nineties somewhere. Technically, it wasn’t a very hard climb: basically a staircase heading 1.4km into the sky. But it was bloody tiring, especially for the Malaysian guy who had just come off three days of travelers’ diarrhea.

Fortunately there were rest stops every (vertical) 200m with water available, which we made much use of. By about 12:30 we were about half way and stopped to eat our supplied packed lunches. For some reason I was expecting rice and curry, as were most of the Asian climbers judging by their facial expressions when they opened their lunches. A white bread cheese sandwich, two mini-bananas, and a chicken wing was a rather unusual lunch in Asia, especially in Malaysia where the food is excellent and so cheap that the cheese in the sandwich probably cost more than the average curry with rice. The bananas were good though.

We slowed down considerably after lunch - diarrhea, altitude, and exercise are probably a bad mix - so I was able to conserve my muscles for the next day.

Part way along we came across a stand of pitcher plants which amused me and my camera for half an hour or so. These strange things are a bit like venus fly traps on steroids, although they don’t necessarily feed on flies. The lavae of some flies and mosquitoes mature in the juices contained in the pitcher while other insects attracted to the bright colours land on the sticky rim, get stuck, die, and gradually slip into the pitcher. And we thought humans were cruel to animals!

There are about 20 species of these things on Mt Kinabalu and 30 species in Malaysia. The other 50 species grow around the world in Australia, Sri Lanka, South America etc. Amazing I've never seen one.

Most of that stuff was more for my benefit than for yours.

The last kilometre or so became more scenic as we climbed through the cloud layer and had a few glimpses of the daunting climb ahead. Three of us enjoyed the views!

We arrived at the lodge in time for dinner, had a cup of tea on the balcony while inhaling the magnificent view, and headed to our hut for bed. I took a few photos of sunset from our cabin and climbed into bed fully dressed for our early morning walk.


6 July 2006
By 2am I had supposedly had six hours sleep but it didn’t feel like it when I rolled off the bed, tied the two ends of my shoelaces together in a random knot, donned my headlamp, and stumbled uphill for the last 2.5 km sideways and 1km up. Bloody steep.

We didn’t get far before Vong started feeling the effects of altitude: headache, nausea, and dizziness. He pressed on nevertheless.

I headed up ahead of the other three to catch the dawn while they rested every few metres, not that I was rushing. At 4000m I was concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other. I was wisely wearing a peaked cap which prevented me from looking up at the daunting slope, which by this time had morphed from a staircase to a steep rock slab with the path marked by a white rope with which I pulled myself up the steep sections. Unwisely, I looked up once in a while to see other torch lights way ahead of me and the distant peak hidden by the camber remaining hopelessly distant.

I was going the same pace as some kids who would race past me (i.e. at almost normal walking pace) and then rest as I staggered by, while three girls trudging at a moderate snail’s pace with tiny steps overtook me and disappeared into the darkness. Other than that and a few distant torch lights I was pretty alone in the darkness, just me, the mountain, a white rope, a small patch of rock in the circle of my LED headlamp, and that little voice in the back of my head saying, “Stuff it, Peter, turn around, head back to camp, and go to sleep in your nice warm bed.”

By the time I was near the peak, the voice got a bit louder, the temperature lower, and the wind stiffer, but the voice was easier to ignore with the peak in sight.

I arrived at the peak just as the sky was getting light in the east, so I found a crag just below the peak to shelter from the wind. I was glad of the USD10 I had spent on capped fingerless gloves, strides, a long sleeved top and a jacket; I left all of my warm stuff in Bangkok thinking that anywhere a few degrees from the equator was going to be warm. Damn is was cold!
Vong arrived just as the sun was rising, still suffering from the altitude but determined to make the peak. The other two had turned back 500m short because of the cold.

We shared the sunrise with about 20 other punters, amusing ourselves with the odd photo, although with the cold I was loath to remove the caps from my gloves. After about then photos my fingers were completely numb and I could feel my other extremities beginning to follow suit.

The arrival of the sun didn’t warm us up much, but it did illuminate the path we had followed to get to the peak. I had strayed a bit from the path on the way up, but no more than about ten metres. The cliff to the right of the path was at least eleven metres from the rope. Whew.
The views from the top and on the high slopes were far better than I had imagined. The cloud bank at about 2500m added to the magic, along with clear blue skies and clean fresh air. Way, way too fresh.

We left while our limbs still had a few degrees of movement and Vong’s condition gradually improved while my knees gradually painful and then agonizingly so. By the time we reached the lodge I was going slower than my ascent and was seriously considering hiring the stretcher.

On the way up we were passed by a couple of porters carrying a stretcher and long poles with which they would carry it. According to my guides, an American woman the previous day had decided her knees had had enough and required the use of a stretcher to get down. All 250 pounds of her. It took ten stretcher bearers to get her off the mountain. It’s perhaps because I don’t want to be compared to a 250lb American that I resolved to get down on my own two feet, knees or hands, although I did empathize with the poor giant.

After breakfast we made our way slowly down the stairway, stopping regularly to take photos, rest, and wait for poor Peter and his knees. We were overtaken by everyone except a Hong Kong couple who were also suffering from bad knees. For some reason it made me feel a bit better and the little voice telling to get a stretcher shut up for a bit. (N.B. If you are a psychologist reading this, try not to read too much into the little voices in the back of my head. We’re all quite normal.)

Not surprisingly, the climb down took even longer than the climb up. The entire climb averaged a 25% gradient (normal stairs are no more than about 30%), so try to imagine climbing down an 8.7km staircase with pain lancing through your knees every step unless you drop straight legged off the step, with Vong, a physiotherapist, telling you not to do so, and blisters on your palms from putting all your weight on your stave. Actually, I’m dramatizing it a little, but it was tough. Probably the toughest was getting close to the bottom and having a sixty year old Englishman race past me at close to my level ground running pace. Probably something to aspire to in 23 years, but I like to be a little realistic.

After seeing off my guides and climbing companions I limped into my hotel, picked up my bag, and thanked god I was in a hotel with an elevator. After about 12 hours sleep I was up and amusing the locals with my slow stylized gait. Most of them didn’t even ask what was wrong with my legs; they simply asked how I liked Mt Kinabalu. I guess the Kinabalu walk is like the Samui Tattoo or Boracay burn: everyone knows how and why.

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Photos

Sunrise
My fingers were numb by this time

Comments

[Margaret Young]

Clinical Interpretations
This psychologist can empathise with your knee feelings WITHOUT scaling dreamy heights! Little voices in backs of heads have their place when they are talking sense! Maybe yours were, but ever the adventurer, PK gives 'sense' only a cautionary consideration - then acts on a greater agenda! Much love, and keep them coming please. (Is IL on your Blog list? Sure he must be, but we haven't commented in our emails.) Marg