Part VIII: Mount Kinabalu, KK

Mount Kinabalu, Sabah

The story unfolds from the year long planning... still with no training undertaken.

After a short flight but tough journey to Mesilau which took nearly 4 hours from 7-11pm, I was soon beginning to expect a rough ride all the way to the summit. The picture is the map of Mesilau Park Resort or so called, mountain lodges where it was also the starting point of the gruesome climb.

Pictured here is a Lion's plague on their first sponsored summit climb and on the right is the map from Mesilau trail to the summit (please click on pictures to enlarge). Our group took the longer route (3km longer but more scenic views) from Mesilau instead of the Timpohon route which was shorter but more uphill and rocky.

As you can see, it was only 2km into the trail from Mesilau and already, things were beginning to look more rougher than scenic. Surrounded by the lush green forest to the latter which sees more eerie mountainous vegetation and rocks, there was a gut feeling that things are going to be crazy.

This was about halfway through and we were already above the clouds. There were lesser oxygen getting through and I had to control my breathing and at the same time, figure out, there's still about 4km to go... with a gradient of 30-40 degrees or even up to about 50 degrees at times... what more with the temperature dropping... and night beckoning.

These were the pictures taken further upwards when thick fog was ushered downwards, air was thinner, I stopped momentarily, took these few shots but that was about it as at this moment, I had a sprained ankle, and it was already 4.35pm, meaning, I only had about 90 more minutes tops before it got dark. It was eerie, lonely, cold yet intriguing and fascinating at the same time.

There was still about 3km of climb up to the base camp, Laban Rata, and there was no question of IFs and BUT's. It was only of what time I will be reaching there. The thought of quitting was evident as I tried to battle that psychology shit. It was too late to go down, and still 3 more hours of climb. My legs were giving way, my body was numb and drained from the uphill climb... it was all psychology but at last, I made it to the base camp at 7.35pm.

Now came the deciding point, to go up or not to:

1. Go as per plan (thats what you are here for anyway), climb to the summit but leave my camera behind (because I couldnt bear anymore load what with my legs sprained and I still had to carry my rations of power bars and water.. my camera bag was about 5kg)

OR

1. Stay back at Laban Rata, and fulfill my wish of taking nice photographs.

BUT, that would have defeated the purpose either way because my objective was to bring the camera all the way up to the summit for some really cool shots... either way, I was going to disappoint myself. I chose the first option. The choice was more obvious. I had to push for it no matter what. The camera can wait.

And so...

At approximately 2.11am, after a 4 hour sleep, on Saturday, 15th of March 2008 with the temperature hovering between 8-9 degrees celcius, I got up, warmed up and told myself, I will let myself down if I dont make the climb and off I went with the psychology game. Armed with nothing but my winter vest, my phone and a torch light, I was about to make history for myself.

The 2.8km uphill climb was anything but easy... in fact, it was gruesome, 5 x tougher than I had anticipated, and 1km up, I was already losing faith. The air was thinner, I had to control my breathing even more, it was dark (I only had a handheld torch light with no gloves while the rest of the climbers had a forehead mounted torch with gloves)... it was steadily uphill, manouvering through mountain edges with only a rope pinned on hinges set up by pioneer climbers, sometimes slippery, it was freezing cold without any gloves on, taking small steps at a time whilst other climbers whizzed past me... the only ever fascinating thing was the stars... there were billions and gazillions of them... even with my naked eye, I could see the milky way...

Time was ticking... but slowly and steadily, at 635am, I had reached 3/4 of the summit. I could see some climbers had already reached the peak with their flashlights at the top and flashes from the cameras.

I stopped and wondered, it was beautiful but I had no camera but then I thought, I had my phone with me and took these few shots with my camera.

In fact, I was so drained out and was trying my best to catch any oxygen that was left in me at that altitude, I thought I had reach my max and the horizon looked so much further than before...

Thank you. You inspired me. If it wasnt you, I would have truly let myself down as I decided not to go further at that point but you were there. You made it happen for me and there was this sudden burst of energy that seemed to come out from no where.

Finally at 7.15am, approximately 12 hours ago when I first reached Laban Rata, and about 5 hours into the second ascend from 230am in the morning, I had finally reached the summit with only phone camera pictures to show, I was jaded but in high spirits... why not? I was standing at the top of South East Asia.

It reminded me of Old Man of Coniston, which is one of the most famous of all the mountains in the Lake District in UK and is situated in the south of the county. It is one of the highest peaks in the Lake District National Park, reaching the height of 803m above sea level. That was my first ever real climb of a mountain together with my then uni mates.

It also brought me back to Chamonix where at the height of the tip that oversees Mont Blanc, standing at 3803m, that was the highest I have ever been to. This was actually a cable car ride up but still, the same feeling engulfed me to be standing at the top of the world.

It was awesome. I had been to 3 peaks. 2 in Europe and one in Asia. I could never have asked for more. I had a brief moment to myself at the top. I gave myself a standing ovation, looked over the hovering clouds on that bright sunny day. Although I did not have the camera to me which I hated myself (for not doing more training before) until now, I had the chance to capture each and every memory, every single one of them, felt them, each breeze, ray of sunlight, the rock, and others more, to be brought back and added to one of the best experiences of my life.

These pictures were also taken with my phone camera. These were one of the peaks at the top. Check out the steep climb.

These two certs (which we had to buy), was a sweet reminder of how I made it to the top.

And this was the view taken from Kota Kinabalu city centre in one of the hilltops about 50km away using my Canon 400D, USM EF Zoom Lens 75-300mm. Quite a splendid blur view of the Mount KK landscape

And so, my adventure ended with a brief trip to Poring Hot Springs, Manukan Island (next on pictography) and KK town but not with unforgettable memories of what were my footprints embedded on one of the most famous and tallest mountains in the world. I surprised myself..... honestly.