As promised, here's a recap of our climb of Mount Kinabalu. If you didn't read our last long post, let me set the stage for you: the morning of our climb, M has slept, I have not. This is not an unusual state of affairs.We arrived at park headquarters around 8 AM, paid the multitude of mandatory fees (park, guide, conservation, etc.) met our guide, who spoke a small handful of English words, and were soon ready to set off. We arrived as early as we did because we'd signed up to do the Via Ferrata. 'Via ferrata' is Italian for 'iron way,' but in this case it refers to a trail made up of iron rugs, footholds, cables, and rails wrapped along Kinabalu's north face. It's basically a completely safe yet thrilling/terrifying alternate method of descending from the peak. We needed to arrive at the base camp where we'd spend the night no later than 3 PM for a safety briefing, or we'd have to forfeit the trip (prepaid via an extremely complicated overseas bank transfer, shout out to M's financial people at Chase who helped make it happen). We heard most people complete the hike in 4-6 hours.
The Lonely Planet had mentioned that it was possible to walk from park HQ to the Timpohon Gate, the 'real' starting point of the hike, in an hour, but that it was also possible to hop in a car for 16 ringgit (just over five dollars). Since we generally put ourselves in the category of hardcore individuals, we thought we might hoof it, adding three miles to the day's work. However, our guide immediately went over to one of the waiting cars, opened the door, and motioned for us to get in. "Car it is," we thought, half disappointed. Two minutes later, we were delighted by the choice that had been made for us. The first half mile of the walk was relatively flat and scenic, but soon after, the pedestrian path on the side of the road disappeared and the incline steepened dramatically. After a fifteen minute ride, we reached the gate, ogled the results of the 2012 Mt. Kinabalu Climbathon, and began our own journey up the mountain around 9 AM.
The hike itself was relatively uneventful: it was pleasantly cool, and felt great to be moving. We were chugging along at a decent clip, sometimes leaving our guide a ways behind, passing other hikers consistently, and reached the rest hut where our guide had indicated we'd have our lunch break at 10:45 AM. No matter, we can always eat, we thought. We didn't realize just how quickly we were moving until we overheard another couple resting there say they'd left an hour before us that morning, and were then told by some descending hikers that we were 'winning', i.e. we were the first upward-bound hikers they'd seen that day. (This of course excludes the porters, who hauled up huge wicker baskets full of food/luggage using straps around their foreheads, who were beating everyone. Their calves were roughly the size/shape of softballs.) Now, I know that hiking is all about the journey, etc. etc., but I admit that as a competitive runner, there was a small part of me that was delighted by our progress. When I see people in front of me, I want to pass them. It's part of me, like herding instincts in a sheepdog. Anyway, we arrived at base camp by noon. They were surprised to see us so early - most people show up sometime in the early afternoon - but one of the guides took advantage of the opportunity to give us the safety briefing right then, to give us the rest of the afternoon off. Delightful! Afterwards, we crawled into the cozy sleeping bags provided for us on our bunk beds, and spent the afternoon reading, watching the terrible rainstorm that began around 2 PM and lasted all evening, and feeling awful for the many people that arrived chilled and soaked to the bone.
Dinner was served that evening in a giant communal dining hall, early in recognition of the fact that everyone had to get up again in the wee hours to begin their summit attempts (between 1:30 and 3 AM). We shared a table with a fun group of Malaysians in their early twenties who'd hiked the Mesilau trail (the other option besides Timpohon - M and I originally were interested because it's longer and harder, but the Via Ferrata people told us we couldn't). It took them eleven hours, and they'd hiked straight through the rainstorm. Again, we were happy with how things turned out for us. Given how early we'd arrived at base camp, we asked our guide what time we should set out in the morning to make it to the summit for sunrise around 6 AM. He recommended 3 AM, meaning a 2:30 AM wakeup. Even though it was only 7:15 PM when we returned from dinner, we got into bed immediately. More specifically, we squeezed into my bottom bunk, and M read aloud to me from 'The Hobbit,' our team book of the moment.
In general, it takes me a while to switch off each night in bed. M might fall fast asleep within a minute or two, but I need time to unwind, physically and (especially) mentally. However, in the past few months, I've discovered something of a magic sleep bullet: M's voice. He is my personal puppy whisperer, I am his newborn Boxer. He is the turkey farmer, I am the upside-down turkey. Nothing else works to put me to sleep as fast as the sound of his voice reading Tolkien. Since I'm also a night person and find it hard to fall asleep before 11 PM regardless of the circumstances, I was hoping this would work to help me take advantage of the few hours between us and 2:30 AM. I almost fell asleep hearing about dwarves pillaging Bilbo's well-stocked pantry, but when M crawled up to his own bunk around 8:30 PM I woke up again...and stayed awake, all night.
I'll posit that there is almost no torture so exquisite as desperately wanting to fall asleep and being unable to do so. I lay still with my eyes closed, to no avail. I picked up the book I'd started the night before and read another third, hoping sleep would start tugging at my eyelids. Nothing. I was too hot. One of the older climbers from Hong Kong in our bunk room had on and off coughing fits all night, but my earplugs were giving me a headache. I felt like Goldilocks, except I never found my 'just right.' Shortly after midnight, M woke up too, and saint that he is, he rejoined me in the lower bunk and told me a story to try to get me to sleep. At that point, though, it was too late. I knew the Chinese climbers would be getting up shortly after 1 AM, and another weird quirk of mine is not being to fall asleep if I know I'll be woken up soon. I was miserable in the knowledge that the summit leg of the hike was the hardest section of yet, and I'd be doing it on no sleep. Finally, 2:30 AM rolled around, and I tore myself from bed. M and I were slow to get moving, and didn't end up on the trail until 3:20 AM.
Fortunately, my strange competitive instinct is good for something. As soon as we started hiking, we ran into the long string of climbers who'd left base camp in the two hours before we had. I got an enormous jolt of energy (no doubt inspired by my desire to pass everyone) and we cruised quickly up the mountain's final steep pitches. Once again, it felt great to be moving, and the cold air invigorated me; it was probably around 35 degrees. An hour and a half later, we made it to the final leg of the summit: a slippery pile of boulders that we needed our hands to climb. After ten minutes, we reached the top, and snapped a photo with the one other hiker who'd arrived moments before us (not that anyone's counting). We felt great! Then we realized it was 5 AM, fully an hour from sunrise, and we were standing on a windy mountaintop in sweat-dampened clothing. We spent the next hour huddled against the leeward side of a boulder, cursing ourselves for moving too fast, and watching the other eighty or so climbers reach the top and take their mandatory summit-sign photos. Here's ours:
After what felt like an eternity, the sky began to grow brighter by degrees. It was too overcast for a real sunrise in the end, but the light illuminated the dramatic landscape that we'd skated by in the earlier darkness. Here's some of what we saw:
We walked another twenty minutes down the mountain to the starting point of the Via Ferrata, and so began yet another adventure. You may have read elsewhere on this blog that I have what some people call 'a crippling fear of heights,' but for some reason I'd set my mind to doing this. As a climber, I have at least 80% faith in things like ropes and carabiners, so I felt mostly alright about walking down the side of the mountain, thousands of feet of air between me and the ground. I volunteered to be the group captain (the group being me, M, and our guide J) meaning I had to go first, and I think the tiny leadership role did me a world of good. It's hard to describe the experience exactly - I think my mind was addled by the adrenaline and lack of sleep - so I'll let these pictures do the talking.
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| This is much more impressive than it looks. |
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| This is exactly as impressive as it looks. |
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| What's impressive here is primarily our guide's photography skills. |
We've got a couple videos of our time on the mountain that we'd love to share with you, but the Internet gods aren't smiling on our upload speeds at the moment. Soon!
Over and Out,
S&M
I LOVE THIS DAY! Thank you for sharing this amazing story of love, competition, and terrifying heights! Just hearing you tell the story my hands got clammy thinking of being up there! Sending love, hugs, and peaceful dreams. - Mrs. Rounsaville :)
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