Mount Kinabalu (4095m) - First hiking challenge - Ueli & Alisha

Bucket list

It was a bucket list item of mine, to climb a mountain. So here we were, in Borneo, having heard so much about its wildlife, rainforests, and its trekking adventures. Feeling ambitious, we decided to take a leap of faith and just for kicks, climb a 4000-something meters high (4095m to be exact) mountain, Mount Kinabalu. As always, the misguided advice from those selling the trekking tours lead me to believe that this will be a piece of cake. No big deal! WRONG! Had I known what was in store for us over the next two days, I would have prepared myself mentally a little more.

Day 1 – Start of the hike

The day starts at 6:30am, the driver shows up at the reception where we are waiting already, fully prepared in our layers of sweat wicking base layers, warm fleecy second layers, and finally our rain jackets. Our backpacks ready to be accessed easily on our backs. The driver informs us that we will drive to the meeting point through the city and into the mountains….ETA 8:30am. Calm! Calm before the storm! Literally! As we arrive at the meeting point, we see lots of other mountain climbers, many of whom look professional and experienced, filling out forms, signing waivers, snacking, and getting prepared overall. We meet out guide Tomas, a man of few words as we will learn over the next day and a half, a local who lives nearby, a guide who goes on the mountain tour at least 4 times a week, and our guide who had apparently been drinking and partying the night before supporting a hangover. As we start our drive to the starting point, I have been told that we are already at 1800m. 4100-ish meters minus 1800m…calculating..2300m approximately, and our target for today is the base camp at 3200 meters. Sounds easy enough! Wrong again! As we leave the car at the starting point, tie our lunches to our backpacks, secure our rain jackets, our guide asks if we have rain covers for our bags. We didn’t! But it can’t be that bad since the top layer of the bags should be water resistant. As we will find out later, there is a difference between water resistant and water proof.

Let’s get started

As we start, a slight descent down at first through a series of stairs. Both of us are okay. Walking a path is okay! But then come the stairs. Having hiked up Grouse mountain, and the Stawamus chief countless times, I can pace myself on a hike. As we start the never-ending stairs, and after what seems like forever but really has only been 5 minutes, I know I need a break. But not wanting to slow Ueli down, I continue. At this time, I realise that the milk coffee at the meeting point earlier was not a good idea. Nevertheless, we continue. Slowly! Finally, having reached 1km mark, a sigh of relief as we break for a few minutes. The guide magically disappeared into the wilderness at each rest stop and appeared as we were getting ready to start our hike again. This continued to happen at each break and we attempted and failed to get to know him a little bit more. Part of it can be blamed on the language barrier since he didn’t speak more than a few words of English, another part on the fact that Ueli and I both needed all our energy reserves to climb this bloody mountain! A total of 6kms was to be hiked by this afternoon in order to reach the base camp at 3200m. As we leave the 3km, I look forward to the lunch break allotted at 4km mark. And as we leave the 3km break point, it starts to rain. Now you would think that Ueli and I will be prepared for the rain, and though we were somewhat prepared, but we forgot a very important aspect. The rain cover for our bags; as we will find out later when we reach the base camp that our clothes for the next day are wet and cold. We maintained a steady pace, Ueli and I alternating taking leads and our guide following us behind, surprisingly ready to go whenever we were ready without showing any signs of a hangover. Of course, if he is taking climbers up to the summit at least 4 times a week, this is child’s play for him.

Lunch break and first longer stop

Finally, the fourth kilometer mark and a lunch break. I have never appreciated a cucumber sandwich, an apple, water, and a boiled egg so much before as I did now. As we sit on the make shift bench to eat quickly, several chipmunks appear from the wilderness, as if knowing for certain that the climbers will be giving them some food. With an almost aggressive nature, the chipmunks approach very close (perhaps not even one foot away) as we eat, they stare with their big, beady, chipmunk eyes. At one point, I thought they would jump up on the lunch eaters if they didn’t get any food thrown to them. As we finish lunch and get ready to continue the climb, it starts to pour rain. As if it wasn’t already difficult enough with the hot and humid weather, the rain in addition gave us two clear options: too hot with the raincoat on, or completely drenched but cooler with the raincoat off. And as always, the guide appears out of a shed made for guides and signals for us to start our hike while he catches up a few minutes later. Our hoods on our heads, socks drenched in water, our shoes wringing out water with each step up, we hope that our clothes in our bag will not get wet. Wrong again as we will find out later! The climb becomes steeper with each passing kilometer but all Ueli and I can focus on is the sixth kilometer mark at the base camp. Stopping for only 1 minute at each kilometer rest stop, we continue with our heads down, energy conservation mode on. The view was amazing as we climbed higher and higher, finding darkest black frogs with warts on its skin everywhere since it was raining, finding Pitcher plants that look like an artist high on mushrooms’ creation with its beautiful, vibrant colors. Stopping to admire the frogs and the plants while watching out for other wildlife like snakes, we carefully climb up the never-ending stairs which seem to get even steeper. Actually, I would say they weren’t stairs but more like large stones placed on top of each other with little space on the side to place the foot. Not stairs. Stairs would have been easy!

Approaching the base camp

As we go through a very dense area full of high trees, we finally see some structures, perhaps the base camp as we climb up some more rocks. I would estimate a 40% gradient. The buildings seemed so close yet so far away with each step putting more and more pressure on our backs and knees. The water soaked backpacks, shoes, socks, and pants added more weight than needed. If we were looking for a challenge, this was it! The battle between the mind and body had never been so intense. The mind convinced that the body cannot walk any longer while the body convinced to reach the base camp within a reasonable time. The mind can be fickle and a thought can become overpowering. Having realized this, I had to ensure I accepted that I was tired but didn’t allow this thought to become primary. The base camp becomes closer and closer and our rest stop was the last one to be reached. Which means the longest walk up, but on the bright side, the closest to the entrance to the summit. Always a bright side! I found the hike to be meditative (almost forced) where I had to focus on the breath and quiet any thoughts that came to mind whilst only focusing on the goal. My previously acquired but barely practiced Vipassana meditation training allowed me to do just that, accepting that the mind is fickle and I need to be in control of my thoughts, not vice versa. We finally, reach our base camp, and I see light at the end of the tunnel. Our arrival time 1:39pm. We were the first ones to reach our base camp since I saw 8 empty beds and no other climbers around. Water dripping from our shoes, our pants, our jackets, we prepare for the moment of truth when we find out whether the clothes in our bags are still warm and wearable. They weren’t. It must have been about 7 degrees Celsius at this time and Ueli gets to work immediately to ensure we have dry clothes for tomorrow while I prepare our sleeping bags. The plan is to be ready and leave the base camp at the next day 2:30am to reach the summit before sunrise, but conditional to the weather conditions. We were told we would find out at 2:15am tomorrow morning whether the rain will stop us from reaching the summit. How do we know? Well, if the gate of the entrance is open, then the hike is on, and if its closed, then we are not allowed to climb to the summit. No fancy radios or satellites to inform of the weather conditions. As I sit down next a window in an attempt to warm up in my wet clothes, more climbers walk in the rest stop. I see Ueli with all our clothes and wet belonging, spreading them out on the flat side of the mountain underneath our rest stop, taking full advantage of the warm sun. Having this sun while climbing up would have been so great! But, we were too tired to complain and were just happy that we at least get some sun now. All is well! As our shoes and clothes are drying, we head to the lunch hall where all the climbers stay and meet. About 100m walk from our rest stop, the adrenaline has now kicked in and we decide to go on without our shoes, leaving them to dry in the sun. Not worried about the stares of bewilderment from other climbers, we head down the 100m stairway walk to the hall. The food was great and only justified by eating a second plate. Or maybe we were just THAT hungry! Tomorrow’s plan depended upon the weather and rain conditions on the top and at this point I was secretly hoping for rain. We had also signed up for Via Ferrata, the highest iron walk (world record) which seemed to be too much for now. As we wind down, our clothes dry thanks to Ueli’s hard work, ready to get in our sleeping bag and mentally preparing for tomorrow’s summit, 4095 meters, another 900m to the peak.

Day 2 – The summit

We wake up and ready ourselves by 2:15am, waiting for our guide and waiting for the final go-ahead of the magical gate to the summit. It was open! The climb to the summit started at 2:45am. Our only source of light, a headlamp on Ueli and a hand torch for me. We start climbing the never-ending stairs again. This time, in complete darkness. My curiosity about my surroundings tempting me to look up and around a few times, only to result in stumbling in the dark. I will have enough of that view in proper daylight on the way down. We climb for two hours, one of which was done by ropes and slippery slopes with a 60 grade. There was a moment of weakness where my thoughts about tiredness and a slight fear of heights made me freeze up, not wanting to continue any further. I was ready to wait where I was, in the dark, not realizing how close we were to the top. Ueli and I take a break, I gather my thoughts and the little courage I had left and start our climb up again. we start seeing many other climbers starting to sit and settle in, indicating to me that we were almost there. And we were. I will never forget the moment we reached to the very top, where there was nowhere else to go. The sign that says “4095m” the adrenaline rush, an ecstatic feeling. Ueli insisted on taking a picture. We kindly asked requested a fellow climber who seemed to be planted into the rocks next to the summit sign to move out of the picture. As an answer, we received a very stern and aggressive “no”. So, we decided to click the picture anyway with his grumpy face in it. I don’t think he liked that very much. Lol! Our guide insists we start our trek down to the base camp immediately but we wanted to watch the sunrise. Cold and wet from the rain and fog, we sat down for a few minutes only to freeze up.

Sunrise on the way down from the summit

All the way down!

The final decision to continue to move on down was a wise one since it was starting to rain again and the downward slopes would be nothing less of dangerous at this point. Rappelling ourselves using ropes, walking a short distance, we watched the sky turn orange as we descend downwards. The sun trying hard to peek through the fog but all its attempt in vain. The orange sky gave us the illusion that we were close to a volcano. We weren’t! As the day became brighter, we saw the surface we were walking on. Barren from any trees and vegetation, all we could see was clouds, fog, and mountains down below us. A breathtaking view.

We start our descent down to the base camp and at this time, we decided not to continue with Via Ferrata given the bad weather and lack of energy. We still had to climb down the starting point this afternoon. Another 4 hours descent down. At the base camp, we eat a quick breakfast and prepare ourselves for the climb down. This should be an easy part. WRONG! The first few kilometers down are tolerable, almost deceiving as we thought we can continue our fast pace throughout the way downward. After covering 2km, still 4km to go, we take a much-needed break and then on, things got tougher. Even though it wasn’t raining, the steep steps down took a toll on the knees and thighs. Somehow, we reached down, and the last 5 minutes which had steps up to the entrance of the starting point seemed the longest. It was amazing to see porters going up while we made our way downwards, carrying at least 40kg on their backs.

Mount Kinabalu – We did it!!

We bid farewell to our guide, who sometimes had to help me down slippery steps for which I am grateful and head into the car making our way back to the hotel. Our plan, laundry and sleep. The picture of watching tv in bed and eating kept me going up during the times where the pain was overwhelming the day before.

It was after this trip that I contracted an ear infection which would take me weeks to recover from. However, I am so happy to be able to cross a climbing a summit off my bucket list.

Off to Bali we go!

Alisha