Climbing Mt Kinabalu

Mt Kinabalu - South Peak
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Climbing Mt Kinabalu was one of my main objectives of heading to Sabah. Before that, I had looked into many photos of this beautiful mountain and I just couldn't wait for the moment when I was up there - the highest mountain in South-East Asia!!

Departing at 8am from Berjaya Palace hotel, using Ranau highway, Audrey and I arrived in Kinabalu Park at about 9.40am. Since it was raining, we felt pretty cold although we were just at the mountain's foot. After getting a mountain guide (Jaymol, RM70), a porter (RM6.60/kg) and settling all the payments, we began our trek at the Power Station at 10.30am whereby the rain had stopped. On the way up, we passed by Carson's Falls (a waterfall with cool and crystal clear water), Layang-layang Radio and Television stations, Carson's Camp and six trail shelters. Moving from one shelter to another, I was a lot more attracted by the different forest zones that we came across as they were enriched in a wide variety of plants ranging from montane oak, mosses, ferns, red and white blossoms, red berries, to some alpine-like plants. Besides, i was also pleased by having a chance to see one to two Borneo Mt Ground squirrels hoping here and there, from the tree's branch down to the floor, while we were resting at one of the shelters.

Body part of Donkey's Ears Peak
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Trekking along this cool serenity which offered pollution-free air made me feel very refreshing. Nevertheless, it was undeniable that the trek was extremely tiring as we had to climb up many series of steps forming out of tree roots, steep brownish-orangy soil and a patch of rocky outcrop. When we reached the sixth trail shelter, we were happy to hear from Jaymol that there was only 200 meters left for us to climb up to Laban Rata Resthouse. Although it was not far away anymore and we were hoping so much that we could finish this faster, our legs were just too tired to move on quickly, ended up with reaching Laban Rata Resthouse at about 5.30pm...What a day!!… After having a hot shower and dinner, we slept early that night as we had to wake up at 2.00am the next morning and continue our climb to the summit.

I'm above the clouds!!
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Sharp at 2.00am, we woke up and I had a packet of milo and two packets of chocolate biscuits for my breakfast. After that, we started off towards the summit at about 2.45am. On the way up, there was slowly no more forest, but bare rockface. To climb up those steeper rockface, ropes were there for us to use and pull ourselves up. In reality, however, the rockface was not that steep actually when we could see them in daylight. Thus, many climbers including us preferred not to hold the ropes as often as we could as they were thick and heavy, causing us to use up more energy and feel even tiring. In order to catch up with the sunrise, Audrey and I tried to make an all-out effort to climb as fast as we could. No matter how, due to our poor stamina, we hardly made ourselves not to make a stop in every twenty steps of climbing!!

Gorgeous view from the Low's Peak
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One step one breath…under the encouragement and motivation given by Jaymol...we finally reached the Low’s Peak at about 6.30am! It was relatively cold (~8ºC) and windy up there. Since it was very misty that day, we were disappointed that we couldn’t see the magnificent sunrise. When the sunlight was out slowly after 7.00am, however, we got a breathtaking view of the entire granitic summit area!! Looking at the summit area that was initially shrouded in mist appeared gradually in front of you was really amazing....I was touched by such grandeur of nature till i didn't feel like leaving that place!!! Nevertheless, we were advised to get down from the mountain before it was enveloped by the clouds later on. After taking a few masterpieces of the gorgeus view of the mountain, we hurriedly made the descent along the same trail. On the way back, it was raining very heavily and we were thoroughly wet!

See! It's not that steep actually at the summit area..
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Being a first-time-mountaineer, 'determination' is what i learn from this long trek to Mt Kinabalu.