The Day I Conquered Mount Kinabalu

I never thought I will be writing this post, 2, 3 4 or 6 months after ascending Mount Fuji. You see, Mount Fuji was standing at 3776m and Mount Kinabalu, aka Mount KK is standing at 4095m, about 300m higher than Mount Fuji.

I still remember the agony of descending from the peak of Mount Fuji back to “planet earth”… or rather, Fifth Station. The thought of that has forbidden or should i say, deter me from ascending yet another mountain. Its really funny because to me, it seems like going up is so much easier than descending.

But when my friends seemed so keen to wanna try Mount KK, for some weird reason, I decided to go with it. Maybe its the company, maybe… I still have that little explorer in me after all these years.

So, my friends and I book a 5 day 4 nights tour to conquer South East Asia’s highest peak. From Singapore, we took a flight from Air Asia to Sabah. After at which, we stayed a night at a local hotel before moving out the next morning to Mount Kinabalu HQ, which again, we stayed another night before our climb.

On the climbing day itself, we woke up at 6am, had our breakfast at 7am before moving to the front office to collect our pass and breakfast. We then started the climb to Laban Rata at about 8.30. The ascend is slightly different from Mount Fuji for there are plenty of steps and rocks. All in all, we need to cover a distance of 6Km to reach Laban Rata.

The first 3km are a breeze, but after that, our body and legs starts to tire (I mean, we didn’t train for this. In fact, we just waited for this day and start the climb without any training, conditioning… luckily, I am still pretty young at 33 lol). Somehow, you just need that motivation to carry on.

One little trick I use is to ascend a few meters, stop and rest my legs for say 5 second and everything goes back to normal. Once we reach laban rata, we need to climb a flight of starts to Pendant Hut (the overnight accommodation for Via Ferrata climbers). That flight of stairs is just one of the “longest” flight. Seems to take forever lol. We finally reach Pendant Hut at 1330 hrs and have our rest before the brief on the safety instructions for our Via Ferrata activity tomorrow.

We showered (tip: the water heaters are solar powered, so, its best you try to shower  in the day. Once night or evening falls, the water can turn cold) and had our dinner before returning to Pedant hut to rest and prepare for the night climb. While at it, I took a 30 min “cloud gazing” on the rocks of Laban Rata. Its just me, myself and the clouds. A moment to remember.

Slept at 10 and woke up at 1.45am to have breakfast and begin our ascend to lows peak. If you are at it, then don’t worry, the night climb is a lot easier and cooling than it was in the day. You just need to be careful not to sway off the sides. Some people might experience altitude sickness at this point… but I am lucky not to have them.

Some things to note for preparation of the night climb is, you need to have a glove. Preferably, one that has a nice grip to it as there will be ropes for you to grab. You need a torch as well, again, preferably a head torch. You can get one at one of the stop-overs on your way to “headquaters”, and it’ll only cost you less than 10 ringgit. So, make sure you purchase before that. A nice pair of trekking shoes is also preferred as compare to “running” shoes.. as you really need them for comfort and climbing.

After a while, I manage to reach lows peak. – Easy money baby… lol

After descending from the summit, we made our way to the world’s highest Via Ferrata at 3776m (I just realized that this is the same exact height as Mount Fuji lol). Gosh, it was a truly amazing experience… but man, it is super, super tiring. The average time taken to complete the Full course Via Ferrata was about 4 – 6hrs and the record set by a lady was 1.5hrs. 1.5hrs… that’s just freaking, incredibly fast. For our case, we did alright, and finish the entire course in about 3hrs 30 mins… not too bad considering it was our first time doing it.

Then again, after the Via Ferrata… my legs and knees were wobbly. In fact, it was so tiring that I didn’t even want to walk. In fact, I truly believe this Via Ferrata was my killer because after conquering lows peak and descending to 3776m for the Via Ferrata, I am completely energized and don’t even feel tired. But gosh… after the activity at the low circuit… I’m like a dead fish in the water. In fact… I cant imagine how is it going to be like for the descend to Kinabalu Headquaters…

Again, like Fuji… the descent is horrible. My knees was gone from the “Via Ferrata” and the journey down to Mount Kinabalu HQ was horrible. haha… In fact, I find it very challenging on the descent as my knees were painful and aching from every step down.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience (less the descent). Then again, if not for the via ferrata, I think i wouldn’t really ‘suffer’ the descent though haha. Like Fuji, been there… done that. Now… next challenge please =P