Kinabalu National Park, Borneo, Malaysia – May 24th – 27th, 2017

It turned out to be the right decision to take an earlier bus from the Kinabatangan River, even if it did mean we had to suffer a verbal onslaught from Osman. As we had feared, reception at our hotel DID close in the early evening. If we would have gone with the original plan to arrive late at night, we would have been homeless in the middle of nowhere. Instead, we were greeted by some overly friendly, attention starved cats and then basked in the luxury of our own cabin with wall to wall windows, allowing us to look out over the Borneo forest.

J Residence at the entrance of Kinabalu National Park.

We attempted to take it easy the next day, but as most of you know by now, our characterization of “taking it easy” can easily warp into a full-on excursion. Since we were scheduled to start the overnight trek to summit Mt. Kinabalu the next morning, we figured we would just do a short flat hike in Kinabalu National Park as a warm up for the big climb. What was described in the park brochure as, “fairly level” turned out to be rugged, muddy, long, and anything but level! We spent most of the 3-hour hike, cursing the brochure and making up reasons for why they would describe the trail as “fairly level”. The best we could come up with was: If you do the entire trail and make it a loop, you end up at the same elevation as you started. Also, the name, “Kiau View Trail,” is deceiving, since there was absolutely no view to be had, just dense jungle with no wildlife except mosquitoes and leeches. Needless to say, we finished the trail muddy and irritated.

A day in Kinabalu National Park. The bottom-center photo shows our matching shoe leaches and the bottom-right photo is not a river, but the muddy, flat, not flat trail.

The next day, our tour company picked us up at the hotel and we were on our way to summit Borneo’s tallest peak – Mt. Kinabalu, 4,095 m (13,435 ft). Although the price was steep (pun intended), the prestige of the mountain, via ferrata at the top, and stiff competition to get a coveted spot to the summit, made us think it was worth the cost. If only that had been the case. After checking in with park security, we met our guide, Rodger, who turned out to be more of a shadow that couldn’t seem to pry his eyes off of his phone (unfortunately, there was perfect 3G service for the entire trip). After sorting out the case of our missing lunch (which the tour company forgot), we finally began the 1400 m (4600 ft) ascent to the lodge. Although everything we had read said that the climb was difficult, we were surprised to finish the ascent in only 4 hours including a 30-minute stop to eat our mayonnaise and cheese sandwiches (ew.). Most of the route consisted of evenly spaced steps, making it accessible to all tourists regardless of their activity level (to be fair though some people were not enjoying themselves). Although every so often we were able to catch a glimpse of the view, most of the trip was through dense rainforest (again abandoned by all wildlife).

Day 1 of the trek up Mt. Kinabalu. Since livestock were not allowed on the trail, porters (bottom-left) were carrying up construction material to build a new lodge. 

At the hut, we hung out with some new friends, completed the via ferrata briefing/training, and had a surprisingly good buffet dinner. For most of the via ferrata training, we found ourselves conflicted as to whether we should be annoyed or laugh. A group of about 12 Taiwanese tourists rudely talked through the entire briefing. When I say, “talked” what I really mean is “yelled” since speaking at a reasonable volume is not really part of their culture – after all, you have to yell in order to hear over each other. Then came the funny part. In order to be cleared to take part in the via ferrata the next day, you had to go through a mockup of the rope and carabiner system along the climbing route. Each and every tourist made the EXACT same mistake as the one before them. They each watched those before them, observed their mistake be corrected by the guide, then on their turn, made the exact same mistake. I was blown away… there are no words. Unfortunately, these same tourists were also our bunk mates, and we slept little to none thanks to the constant bombardment of noises emanated from all of their orifices. Also, since I can clearly control the weather, I spent most of the night worried about rain. If it did not clear by the 1:30am wake up call to start climbing, we would not be able to summit, see the view from the top, or partake in the via ferrata. Worse than that, none of the cost for the trip was refundable.

Luckily, we woke before 2am to clear(ish) skies and were allowed to pass through the gate to summit Mt. Kinabalu. Unluckily, by 2:30am it was raining again, and we spent the entire ascent cloaked in rain gear, hoping the rain would stop and the clouds would clear. Again, the trail was only moderately difficult, with just a few short sections requiring you to hold onto a rope while you ascended. We were at the summit by 4:30am and waited in the freezing cold wind and rain for the sun to rise. As expected, the sun rose, but thanks to the clouds and rain, the view was less than ideal. The summit was pretty unique though. Not only is Mt. Kinabalu the 20^th most prominent mountain in the world, the folds of granite-like rock create an almost moon-like landscape at the summit. After abandoning the plight for a good view, we made our way down to the starting point of the via ferrata. Here we waited for over an hour in the continuous, but light rain, hoping for the opportunity to complete the climbing route we had already paid for. Since customer service is not really a thing in many countries, we were not overly surprised to be left out in the rain instead of being informed that they had canceled the activity over 2 hours before the official cut off time. Needless to say, although we weren’t surprised, we were annoyed, especially since within 15 minutes of finally figuring out it had been canceled (and still 1.5 hours before the cut off time), the clouds cleared and the rain stopped. Anyway, this is all still a bit of a sensitive subject, so I’ll conclude by saying that the “climb” was extraordinarily overpriced and we wouldn’t recommend it unless you enjoy hordes of annoying tourists who have never climbed a mountain, prefer phone addicted shadows to guides, and have money to burn. Like I said though, the peak was unique, but after spending the previous month in New Zealand climbing more spectacular mountains for free, we were quite disappointed.

The summit of Mt. Kinabalu.

Thanks to all those steps, the way down proved to be more difficult than the way up. That last statement proves we are no longer spry young chickens. About 2 hours into the decent, Andy realized he was missing his wallet. Panic stricken, he asked Rodger to finally put that phone to good use and call up to the lodge to see if he had left it there. Luckily, the staff had found his wallet (which for the record, had all of his IDs, the luggage tags to retrieve our bags from storage, credit cards, and about $200 in cash in it) on his bed. Apparently, he had left it there right after I had asked, and I quote, “Did you check the bed to make sure you didn’t forget anything,” and he had grunted, “Yes.” To my credit, and perhaps your surprise, I did not rub this fact in his face (…right away anyway). They arranged for a member of the rescue team to bring it down to the park entrance. Unfortunately, this meant we had to wait around for about 3 hours after we finished the hike – a small price to pay for his returned wallet with all of the cash still inside. Crisis officially averted, we finally made our way back to Kota Kinabalu where we showered, went out for some quality Indian food – YUM!, and finally washed our ripe smelling laundry. When you wake up at 1:30am, it turns out you can accomplish a lot in a day.

Descending Mt. Kinabalu.