Home » Malaysia » Climbing Kinabalu

Clambering down from the rickety base-camp bunk-bed, I turn off the 2am alarm and wonder vaguely what was going through my mind when I packed for this trip. Already shivering in the frigid early morning air, I blearily consider my woefully inadequate clothing options. Let me sum it up for you like this: I'm about to climb to the summit of the highest mountain in South East Asia and I don't even have dry underwear to put on. A t-shirt still wet from yesterday's climb, a pair of light running shoes, a thin jumper, rain-jacket, quick-dry travel trousers, a beanie, gloves & a make-shift scarf (the bandanna I used in India to filter out road-dust) complete my rag-tag ensemble. The up-side is that I don't have to decide what to wear; I just put on every single thing I have with me. As I pull them on, wincing as the damp t-shirt clings to my skin, I wonder just how cold it will be up there. I've been told it often dips below freezing. Should I be worried about the fact that I don't have any boxers to wear, and only very thin trousers? Is frostbite a possibility?! In my sleep-befuddled state, I actually start to genuinely worry about this.

Climbing Kinabalu

Michael Meadows
2007-01-23 12:14:54

Displayed times (last time: )

contract jobs (radiologist) and travels a lot. Two fantastic people who really made the trip a lot of fun. I hope we'll all meet up again somewhere down the road. =)

We spent the next morning wandering around KK, booking base-camp accommodation and stocking up on chocolate & nuts to fuel our climbing efforts. Gareth & I toyed with the idea of buying a bottle of champagne too, to be triumphantly opened (and wildly sprayed around, naturally) upon reaching the summit, but eventually decided it was just too heavy & annoying to climb with. After re-packing our bags, (leaving what I stupidly thought were 'unnecessary' items behind at Tropicana), we caught a mini-van to the park gates but then opted to stay in the cheaper, privately-owned guesthouses outside the park. Dumping our bags, we set off for a short hike inside the park - a bit of a warm-up for the next day. Almost immediately, we were totally soaked by a sudden & prolonged downpour, which gave us some idea what we were in store for over the next couple of days. We must have looked like half-drowned rats, shivering and bedraggled, as we stumbled out of the hills and into the park Cafe for the nightly 'briefing'. One of the immaculately dressed & made-up park rangers, (have any other visitors noticed how almost all of Kinabalu's park rangers are stunningly beautiful women?!), spent an hour telling the assembled climbers all about the different routes up the mountain, what to expect, warning signs of altitude sickness, and so on. It was here we heard about the Mesilau Trail, an alternative route for those who were up for more of a challenge. Until recently it was only open to scientists & researchers, (it's the area's incredible biodiversity that earned it Malaysia's first World Heritage listing), and is in a more pristine condition
than the normal climbing route. It is significantly steeper & tougher though, and takes an average of 3 hours longer. We decided ...