Hiking Mt. Kinabalu — the Descent. Pt 2 of 2
Yuki and I on our way down from the peak (shown). The path is all large slabs of granite which makes for easy walking downhill. Mt. Kinabalu Malaysia.
Part 1 to the Mt. Kinabalu Hike here.
With the sunrise over Mt.Kinabalu disappointingly hidden by the clouds, we began our descent. Yuki was so cold that she was shivering and beginning to get nauseous so our next goal became to get down as soon as we could and warm up.
On the way down the rock face, we got a view of where we had come. Now that it was light out, we could see the long flat path we had followed and the surrounding landscape far below. Mt. Kinabalu and its series of peaks have pretty good prominence over the surrounding landscape. That’s not to say that there aren’t many peaks or mountains of similar height nearby.
We took the majority of our mountain pictures this early morning, including my favourite from Yuki.
Yuki takes a photo of me while I get a photo of the mountain ridges, which is shown in this post as the third photo below this one. Mt. Kinabalu, Malaysia
I also liked seeing the contrast between the grey rock of the mountain and the deep green of the valley hills down below. It seemed to define the mountain more by colour than height where its angularity sat in juxtaposition with the rest of the smooth hilled island.
Low lying wisps of cloud also provided a picturesque scene that instilled a morning glow and soft peace to our otherwise troubled mind.
The valleys of Borneo as we make our way down the mountain. Mt. Kinabalu, Malaysia
The descent was slow going due to fatigue, cold, and nausea. Where we had passed people continuously going up, we were now the slow ones. It seemed to take forever to retrace our steps down the rock face and it seemed that it was taking twice as many steps as the way up. But we did make it down. We did make it back. We got to our rest house and Yuki lay down for a rest. The Vietnamese girl was also resting as they’d gone up and come back down quickly. I packed up the stuff we hadn’t brought to the top.
I then made a mistake; I wanted to get down the mountain sooner than later because that’s what we do on the North Shore where it’s better to persevere and finish than dilly daddle. But at home, we don’t get as tired as here and there’s no time limit. We were supposed to get down for vans back to the city by 4 or 6. Because we had been so slow coming down from the peak, I wanted to make sure we had time for lunch at the bottom before the 2 hour drive back, regardless of which van we got.
But Yukes was too tired and we had time to rest, we could have rested. Instead, I pushed her to go down to breakfast and she slipped on the way, almost rolling her ankle.
Breakfast was a dire affair with a distinct lack of food to be served. I don’t know if we were later than the rush but the cooks weren’t making much and there were empty dishes at the buffet bar. I still managed to get a few eggs, French toast, and couple slices of orange and apple to eat but Yukes didn’t have much of an appetite.
When we started the descent from the mid-mountain rest house back down to the park gate, Yukes was still cold but had overcome the nausea with a Tylenol. Then, the sun came out and our spirits lightened. Yukes began to talk and we started joking around again. Alone on the trail, we found each other’s company again and made our merry way down. Suddenly, she was feeling much better.
The way down, we leapfrogged that annoying Canadian group that had delayed us the morning before and complained in the dinner halls and bathrooms and all around us. We didn’t talk with them though. We made one detour to a helipad that gave us another view of the landscape.
The Tour company decided a while back that instead of packing lunches up for people to bring back down they’d have “afternoon tea” at the bottom of the mountain. This seemed like a good idea but we were quite hungry when we got to the lunch spot mid-trail and only had a few dried mangos and chocolates to eat.
A short rest on the way down the many boardwalks. Mt. Kinabalu, Malaysia. Photo by Yuki
The trail after this got progressively more difficult with fatigue. Going up stairs is difficult because it’s not consistent and it over stretches the muscles as compared with a steady incline. Going down stairs is even worse because of the impact on the knees and heels. Yukes legs were starting to shake and my heels were sore from the impacts.
This was the most difficult part for us. An accumulation of fatigue and sore muscles made the last 2km of the trail quite difficult to undertake. At the end we had to just put our heads down, buckle down and keep going.
But it wasn’t all bad. One Korean woman in a group asked where we were from when we had sat down to rest and exclaimed that I was a “handsome boy!”
Seeing the small waterfall was an incredible relief that told us we had a short climb up to the Timphon Gate. That was a hard stretch for Yukes but we were both grateful to be done.
Throughout the hike up to the peak Yuki showed incredible strength and endurance. She might not have as big a stride to overcome the larger steps but her attitude to continue, to achieve, was admirable. Even getting up early and hiking in the dark was okay as long as she wasn’t cold or nauseous. While this did change on the descent, it passed once she had warmed up and felt better. I think it is fair to say that Yuki is quite capable of many things she doesn’t know of and I was both glad to have her for company and impressed by her stamina.
The lower ridges near the peak had wonderfully different shades of grey and blue as they faded into the morning mist. Mt. Kinabalu, Malaysia
Mt. Kinabalu in Numbers
Leg 1: Timpohon Gate (1,866m) to Laban Rata Resthouse (3,272m), change of 1406m @ 6km; 4.5hrs. In relation to the north shore, that’s the elevation from sea to the Lions in less than half the distance, or the grouse grind twice.
Leg 2: Labana Rata Resthouse (3,272m) to Peak (4095m), change of 823m @ 2.7km; 2.5hr.
Leg 3: Descent from Peak to Timophon Gate change of -2,229m @ 8.7km; 6hr15min.
After the hike, there wasn’t a van specific to our tour there so we had to wait 45min until one came and took us to the dinner hall where we had an hour to eat before our 4 o’clock bus back to Kota Kinabalu.
I mention afternoon tea here because it’s the furthest thing from. Instead of tea and coffee with biscuits that we had imagined, we found more fried rice and noodles along with deep-fried yam chunks and cheap hotdog wieners. The kind that people take camping and talk about how they’d last a nuclear disaster.
I did find some chicken soup though, and we had some with toast and unripe fruit. It was good to replenish our stomachs but I thought that the food choice was again inappropriate for hikers and pretty poor.
The German/Vietnamese couple ended up with half an hour to eat with us and then we got in a van with those Canadians for the ride back to KK.
People were still making their way up as we were on our way down. Mt Kinabalu Malaysia
The story could have ended here and would have been complete but there’s something else I think is worth telling. It’s the days following the hike: the post-hike.
What ended up being our demise was the post-hike. I decided to sleep in the van on the way down as did Yukes but she woke up before me feeling car-sick which only got worse to the point that she almost puked and we had to pull the van into a gas station. By the time we’d hit KK she was ready to get out and hike to our hostel but all the Canadians got out first and then we were up next just a few blocks away. She barely made it to the hostel even with a gravol from the Canadians and a sweet from the Germans, and it took her a while to just sit there and settle down from the ride. The next day, in the afternoon she got nauseous again and we had to sit down again on the sidewalk.
I also wasn’t immune to problems. We both had difficulty the day after the hike on the stairs and with very sore muscles. Then, I also ended up eating something bad for dinner. The evening was fine and we even did laundry until late into the night in the sink but the next day was hell. I woke up early feeling pukish and with diarrhea and ended up sleeping for half an hour at a time for the entire day. The on and off sleeping was so much that before noon I thought it was late evening. My tummy wasn’t happy and neither were my sore muscles. Yukes had to pre-downloaded images of jook to her phone and then go out alone several times for food. Even with Yukes packing my clothes, it took me longer to pack the rest of my bag than it did for her to shower. I didn’t think I’d be able to walk and bus to the airport the next day but by late evening I was finally beginning to feel a little better.
But for all this suffering, we did come across good company. Before Mt. Kinabalu I had booked at Bunibon Lodge because it was closer to the Marine Park and Central area and seemed to have a livelier atmosphere. Afterwards, I booked the slightly more expensive Lavender lodge for it’s better rooms and quietness. It was quiet in our room and we didn’t have any noise problems. Then, when Yukes went out at 11pm or so to get food because I knew I wouldn’t last the night without something in my stomach, she found everything closed and the front desk told me to come down for oatmeal. They made oatmeal for me which was really nice and then the husband of one of the lady’s came out and gave me a rehydration salts package because I’d had so much diarrhea.
The hospitality of the Lavender Lodge was beyond anything we could ever have thought would happen and were delighted the next morning when we came down for complimentary breakfast. Most hostels have self-serve toast and coffee but Lavender Lodge has service for tea or coffee and 3 slices of toast with two slices of watermelon. Watermelon!? We were astonished. I was concerned that I would feel sick later but we managed to walk to the bus depot and get a bus to the airport with plenty of time to spare for our flight to Phuket, Thailand (continued here).
One of the peak’s shorter sisters. Mt. Kinabalu, Malaysia
Some final notes on Sanctuary Lodge and Amazing Borneo.
The staff who picked us up initially, our first impression, were quite friendly as were all the people (excluding the guides) who we interacted with at the mountain such as at the dinner hall and front desk. It was nice that the tour included a certificate of competition (№346608 and 346609) and that all the transportation and itinerary was planned for us. We found the tour a good bonding experience between the two of us and are happy to say that we climbed Mt. Kinabalu, the highest mountain in the Malay Archipelago (Philipines, Malaysia, Indonesia and maybe Papua New Guinea). It is also the 20th most prominent peak in the world. I’m glad we can say we’ve done it as our highest and biggest hike yet, if only to say that it might be hard to find an easily accessible mountain that’s got a higher peak and to say that
we’ve done the highest? mountain in SE Asia. That’s the draw and main selling point. Oh, it’s also in an UNESCO World Heritage Park but it’s a park because of the flora, not the mountain.
The food on the tour was good at first but steadily decreased. Our first dinner and breakfast at the base of the mountain were good but the packed lunch was insufficient and improper for hikers. The Laban Rata cafeteria is significantly undersized and I didn’t like that there wasn’t any fruit in the early morning or much food right before our descent. The only food I found relative to hikers was the fruit, which wasn’t available at every meal and maybe the fried rice. Also, I don’t understand why it’s called afternoon tea if it’s all deep fried stuff.
But the price? I couldn’t recommend to anyone. From the beginning we struggled to pay through HSBC (a different story) partially because they misinformed us. We paid an extra $121 each for the private room the night
before we hiked for a total cost of $1,184 ($592 each) including $90 in wire
transfer fees for a two-night, three-day tour. I can’t recommend it because the cost is way too much. Maybe if it was an all-inclusive resort with catered
service where we’re always attended to and have great tasting food I could
settle the price — but then we’d go to Mexico and it would still be cheaper. We decided to do it because it was our main purpose in visiting Borneo and Kota Kinabalu; but for the cost, so many other and more beautiful things could be done. I’ve heard that diving off the Kudat point is spectacular. I’ve also read several sources indicating that it can be done in one day for $65, but that’s not something Yuki or I were interested in doing. The cost, cost, cost is too much.
True, we didn’t have a sunrise to see, but I think there are other mountains to climb around the world that give more spectacular scenery around. Maybe I just love snow-crowned mountains or seen too many pretty pictures but I think there are nicer mountains to hike with better views. The draw here is as mentioned before but it isn’t worth the cost for the view.
Making our way down the mountain, Mt. Kinabalu Malaysia
