Mikelaurence's travel blogs:
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The Conquering of Mt. Kinabalu
Entry 27 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
At 4:30 am yesterday morning, weary and tired from lack of sleep and 8.7 Kilometers of climbing, I made the summit at Low's Peak (4095 meters). It was still dark outside. As the sun began to rise, about a dozen more climbers joined me at the top of Malaysian Borneo. The entire island was visible below. One of the most magnificent sights I've ever beheld. Despite being in an equatorial/tropical climate, the temperature at the peak was nearly freezing. The lack of oxygen in the air also posed a problem, making it hard to breath on the ascent.
The climb from the guesthouse at Laban Rata (approx. 3,200 meters) to the summit began at 2:30am in the dark alpine jungles. It was insane. Here we were, Dylan, myslef, and our Malaysian mountain guide, Matius, trekking up the mountain with small flashlights, barely able to see 5 feet in front of us, scaling up the granite face of the mountain, hanging from thick ropes. All in all, it was a fairly difficult climb that took 2 days for us to complete. Dylan was suddenly offset by an onslaught of alttitude sickness that left him dizzy and with a fairly severe headache.
The way down was definitely the worst. Especially after a night without sleep due to the alttitude. Afterwards and in retrospect, the completion of the climb seems a dizzying accomplishment. The locals claim that the climb is the most difficult in the world (but then again, they are refering to the climbers that complete the entire trail in under 3 hours - utterly incomprehensible. It took us 2 days.).
This climb is definitely one of the highlights of the trip. Even the fact of being out in the middle of the North Borneon Rainforest is refreshing enough to warrant consideration. Not only were we out there. We came, we saw, and we conquered - to borrow a phrase from Caesar.
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