One week after returning from the northern tip of Borneo that is Sabah, I write these memoirs, of the trip to reach its peak...I woke up sweating at midnight.
We were crammed into a small 6-man bunk in Laban Rata and the heater was already on at full-blast since eight in the evening. We had a lone female Japanese climber with us in the room and together, the combined bodyheat of six with the very effective radiator made for something of a suana.
Darren and the 2 girls sat talking in whispers on his bed. They had already decided not to do the final push for the summit and were still nursing serious bouts of Mountain Sickness and fevers all round. I got up, went to pee and checked again that my alarm was set for 2am. The corridor outside was cold, and so was the toilet, which was thankfully only a few paces away. Rick stirred, muttered to me if it was time to wake up and promptly went back to Zzz-land when I replied that we had another 2 hours to an icy hell.
When my handphone beeped at two, there was a strong force that kept me bolted to my bed. It was dark and freezing outside, everybody was nicely snuggled under the sheets and my feet were aching badly. Plus it was bloody two in the morning. What was I thinking!
I dragged myself up nonetheless and noticed that Rick was already in the shower. Obviously the Cleanliness Freak wanted to be hygenic for this ungodly-hour climb. I brushed my teeth and the both of us then got dressed in the dark, trying our best not to make too much noise as the others were deep in blissful slumber. And yes, we tried our darnest not to look at them all nice and comfy under their blankets, quickly making our way down to the hall downstairs for a quick breakfast before meeting up with Jo again.
Jo wasn't too dissappointed that only the two of us turned up. Perhaps he had seen this situation many times before, people deciding that the 3/4 trip up to Laban Rata was as much as they could take. We then joined the rest of the sleepy climbers in forming a long and silent convoy out of the guesthouse onto the moon-lit trail leading up to Kinabalu's peak. Like a long line of crippled fire-flies, our head-torches flickering in the dark, cold night.
At heights above 3500m, forest cover becomes scarce and we were approaching alot of rock and granite. For about a kilometre or so after leaving Laban Rata, we were faced with an enormous amount of steps carved from pure granite. And you could tell that the gradient of the climb had increased quite significantly from the day before. At some parts even ladder-like. Thankfully, it had stopped raining. That made a big difference. It was cold yes, but at least we were dry. If it had been wet and slippery, surely it would have made the dark and steep ascent that much harder.
Everybody was targetting for a 3 hour climb to complete the final 2.2km to Low's Peak. That would bring us up to the summit at 6am. Just in time to catch the sunrise. Once the steps portion of the climb was over in an hour and a half, the terrain then switched drastically to bare-faced, sloping granite and we had to use ropes for support. There were absolutely no trees surrounding us now and we knew that this barreness could only mean one thing. We were near the top.
Without the 2 girls with us, Rick and me had no difficulty keeping up with the United Nations of Canadians, Kiwis, Swiss, Norwegians, Brits and Americans in the human convoy. We trudged slowly but surely, making sure that we followed the rope and kept pace with the person infront of us. A strong wind was howling across the face of the mountain and because of the lack of tree cover, we took the bare brunt of the high-altitude 'breeze'.
At a quarter to six, I caught sight of Low's Peak. And suddenly, my weary legs grew stronger. Some of the
angmos that were way infront of us had already reached the summit, took their pictures, and were making their way down quickly. They didn't want to linger around too much because it was really cold, zero degrees I reckon.
Ricky and me stood on top of Mount Kinabalu at 0558hrs. From 4095.2 metres, it was really a celestial experience with the swirling clouds all around us and the eerie but beautiful landscape of granite before us as far as our eyes could see. Low's Peak is the highest point on Kinabalu's summit plateau, with a host of other secondary peaks like St John's, Ugly Sisters, Donkey Ears and the very picturesque South Peak completing the 'Stegosaurus Back', as the alpine plateau has sometimes been called.
Unlike the
angmos before us, we lingered on Low's for abit. And I lit a celebratory cigarette. Pity I didn't have a
Cohiba Robustos with me in my pocket or a bottle of Scotch for the cold. It sounds cliched but standing on the summit more than made up for the wet and miserable day before and the almost zombiefied climb up in the wee hours of the morning. The rest of our group should have been up here with us. It was a real big pity they were not.
After the mandatory photos and poses next to the sign that marked the highest point on the mountain, we began our descent. And it was always going to be a killer on the knees and ankles getting down. In 1.5 hours, we were back in Laban Rata at about eight in the morning.
The rest of the party had just awoken from sleep. But the both of us were ready to plonk ourselves down and make up for our severe lack of shut-eye.
Labels: Travel