Beaten by the weather of Mt. Kinabalu

Photo: While ascending to 3272mtrs, ¾ of Kinabalu - 10/12/10

The breakfast in the hostel would be starting at 7.00h, so the previous night I set my alarm to 6.45am. The next day I would be climbing the highest mountain of South-East Asia; Mount Kinabalu, on Sabah, Malaysia. A few minutes past 7.30am I found myself walking along the road to get to the entrance of National Park Kinabalu, another UNESCO world heritage. My way to the park was a 1.8km curving road slightly going uphill. I noticed the grey skies and I hoped that it would remain grey, and that they would take good care of keeping the rain within.

At the park there were a few papers to sign, arrange a mandatory guide, pick-up a packed lunch, a last toilet-break and go!go!go!
It is possible to hire a personal guide, or with a group so obviously it is much cheaper to spent the cost of the guide with other people. I read that it was normal for single hikers to to join other groups or other single hikers. I walked out, and straight away I spotted two foreigners who turned out to be from Southern England. I approached and asked if I could join them and share the guide. This was ok for them, and also for the guide, so I found myself a guide, and off we could go.

Everybody got a badge to ware, and permissions to enter the mountain were carefully checked. Not a single chance to get past without permissions, such as my trip to the top of Spain(See: El Teide; the (illegal) Spanish top).
We started off walking over rocky paths in the wet nature, trees everywhere, vegetation. And when lucky you could spot a tropical animal such as a huge butterfly with a 10cm span-wide, at every shelter and rest stop there was at least one little but super fast animal belonging to the squirrel family. We could also hear many frogs around us, especially at the wet places. Once during the descend we spotted a tiny little brown-red colored frog. Just 2.5cm big. It happily jumped around, not caring about us.

Soon we reached the first sign: the distance of 0.5 kilometers was covered! Brave we kept walking and before we knew there was a next sign: 1.0 kilometers. Every 0.5 km was displayed on these little signs. 6.0 kilometers in total.

Photo: 1.5km check-point! - 10/12/10

On the way we kept on overtaking and being overtaken by an American trio who seemed to be stuck in very deep and serious discussions. A few times deep in discussion about a language, which sounded Bahasa Malay to me, but what I later found out is Bahasa Indonesian, which is fairly similar to Bahasa Malay.
After passing each other a few times we laughed about it and joked that we would see each other in 5 minutes again.

Along the path we had some beautiful sceneries and changes in the nature, the nearer we reached the top. First a lot of jungle, later more rocky with especially smaller and lower vegetation. Some dried out greyish looking trees. Less animals and insects and a lot more wind.



At 3272 meters we reached the first lodges and huts meaning we arrived at or stop. It was in meanwhile 14.00h and we were getting cold from the moment we stopped climbing. Here at this height, without any protection from the trees, I could feel the wind becoming stronger and and wider. But no trees also meant a beautiful view over Borneo.
The wind rowed many clouds with loads of rain. Luckily we were indoors at Laban Rata, the place where I would sleep until 2.00h before ascending to the summit. At 16.00h it started raining heavily, and I was feeling sorry for the people we arrived after this point, all soaked cold. Dinner would start soon, which turned out to be an excellent buffet! Very tasty. And later the three Americans joined us as well with who we had long talks about many things. We were sitting near the window from where we had a wide view over, well yeah, over what? It was all cloud and rain. Non-stop rain. But when the sun started descending the skies heading past the horizon the sky started clearing up a little, with the lower clouds remaining giving beautiful pictures! Due to the wind, every minute this piece of natural art was different. It was a motion of shapes, of colors, of breath taking views! With the sun kicking in its last gleams over the dark rainy clouds below us.

Photo: Breath taking wide views - 10/12/10

At some point people started to leave and we decided to go to bed as well. It was all dark already and after such a long walk it felt like 23.00 or so. So I couldn't keep my laugh when I found the time was only 19.00!

I had some good sleeps and woke up at 1.30h for breakfast to get ready to go to the summit, only to find it was still raining. Raining hard. Seriously raining. So we were not allowed to go to the summit because of the weather.
We talked a bit for about an hour when I decided to go back to put. Our guide mentioned that if it didn't stop raining before 4.00am we wouldn't go up at all.
Well, to me it didn't look like it would stop raining at so I couldn't even be bothered putting my alarm at 3.30. Instead I put it at 7.30, allowing me 30 minutes for waking up having breakfast and getting ready for the descend.
Nobody had been allowed to climb the summit.

Photo: My hiking buddies for the descend - 11/12/10

And down we went, in the sunshine. Beautiful views over Borneo, and I could take photos of each sign which I wanted to do climbing the mountain but forgot :)

Photo: The first 0.5km, and still full of energy - 11/12/10

Photo: I was getting tired from the walk - 11/12/10

Photo: ...and angry - 11/12/10

Photo: Ok, it started to rain now... - 11/12/10

During the walk up and down, we met many porters. People who 'transport' all sorts of things up the mountain literally by carrying it up! And fast they walked! No matter which weight! We saw guys carrying big pieces of wood, heavy backs, about 10 3 meter long plastic pipes, but even full gas tanks! Those big gas tanks they have at the hawkers stands on the food markets! Incredible what heavy stuff they carried up and walking way faster then the average climbers! Unfortunately I have photos taking of these guys.
We saw even one porter carrying 4 of those big backpackers' backpacks! All tight together so there was a 1 long meter backpack hanging on his back.

Just before the end was this huge waterfall because of all the rain that had fallen the night before. Unfortunately the photo is not sharp...

Once reached the entrance to the path, I was satisfied and happy being back. My toes and nails started hurting from the descend because they would touch the front of my shoes every step I made. And wet due to the rain and exercise. But there was another lunch buffet waiting for us at the head quarters! Again incredible tasty!

It was a beautiful walk and only a small disappointment not reaching the top.

We tried to arrange some transport, since there were quite a few people enjoying the buffet, we taught of asking people if they were going to Kota Kinabalu, and we found another 4 people willing to share a taxi. That is how I met Jennifer from Canada and William from England, with who I went to Kuching a few days later.

During the taxi ride, of course, the sky was clear and blue and we had a beautiful view of the summit where, a few hours before, we were not allowed due to the heavy rains......we laughed about it and asked the taxi driver to stop for a moment so we could take a few photos....

Photo: The beautiful summit of Kinabalu - 11/12/10

Photo: Guys, let's go home! - 11/12/10