Once Upon a Climb: Mount Kinabalu

August 27, 2017: Canggu, Bali, Indonesia

Tristen Mills
Aug 27, 2017 · 7 min read
Descending from Low’s Peak, summit of Mount Kinabalu, June 2017

Listening to: SZA — Go Gina

This is the story of the time I climbed Mount Kinabalu, but then almost didn’t. But then DID.

Rewind three months, to the last time I was in Bali. It was the end of May, and I was a bit of a mess. I’d been “solo” traveling for almost four months, but this was the first time I was truly alone. Until then, I’d been lucky enough to meet some incredible people and travel with several of them for most of my trip. But by the end of May, back in Bali after a week of diving in Komodo, I was on my own. I think the loneliest feeling isn’t when you’ve been alone for a long time, but that first moment you’re alone after having been with people you care about.

I spent a few languid days in Ubud, which had been serving as my home base in Indonesia. I wasn’t feeling well and the weather matched my mood — grey and rainy. The only thing keeping me going was Mount Kinabalu.

Standing at 4,095 meters (13,435 feet) high, Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Borneo and an UNESCO World Heritage Site. For friends back home, it’s roughly the same height as Mount Rainier in Washington. A friend I’d traveled with a couple months before had climbed it, and on her recommendation I booked my permit and guide for the two-day climb.

I arrived in the city of Kota Kinabalu the night before the climb. Venturing out into the rainy streets, I went in search of gloves and a headlamp. The headlamp was easy but the only gloves I could find were these ridiculously large, red ski gloves (see photos). I bought the gloves as a precaution, assuming I wouldn’t actually need to wear them. Let me remind you, this is tropical Southeast Asia, not the Himalayas.

On the shuttle from the city of Kota Kinabalu to the base of the climb the next morning, I met a group of four Dutch guys (who I like referring to as my “Dutch Bros”, which only my PNW friends will understand) who worked in Hong Kong and had flown to Borneo for the weekend just to do this climb. Our mountain guides were friends and we all decided to climb together. The Dutch Bros all seemed in pretty good shape, but I was up for the challenge of keeping up with them, knowing I could fall back with my own guide if necessary.

I’ve hiked, camped, and backpacked all my life. During this trip, I’d been walking constantly, sometimes while carrying 15 kg on my back. I’d done multi-day jungle and cave treks in Vietnam and Laos. But I’d never climbed to the summit of a mountain before. What no one really tells you about Mount Kinabalu is that the reason it only takes two days to climb, is that you basically climb it in one very steep, straight line. Our guides told us that on average, it takes five hours to climb the first six kilometers to the overnight camp. We climbed that first stretch in about three.

By the time we reached the hut where we would spend the night, I had a pounding headache from the altitude. The first ones there, we sat around drinking tea for almost an hour before the rest of the climbers began to trickle in. By late afternoon, the wind had picked up and it started getting colder. It got darker, and the wind howled louder. It started to rain. We were all surprised at just how cold it was — it reached 3° C (37° F) that night and we were to begin the summit climb at 2 a.m. The hut didn’t have heat, so after dinner I climbed into the mummy bag on my cot wearing all my clothes and a beanie. Oh, and those huge gloves, which were starting to seem less ridiculous…

At 2 a.m., I woke up to a guide talking to the other group of climbers staying in my room. Still half asleep, I heard him explaining that the gate to the summit trail was still locked. This meant that a mountain ranger hadn’t yet deemed the trail safe to climb due to the weather. It was raining, and the remaining 2.7 kilometers to the summit consisted mainly of steep granite slabs. We would wait and see if the gate was unlocked in the next hour, but it wasn’t looking good.

Admittedly, climbing in these conditions, in the dark, didn’t exactly sound ideal. But this was my only chance! If the gate wasn’t opened, we would be forced to descend the mountain and go home. Do not pass go, do not collect a refund. Another group would be on their way up, so we weren’t allowed to stay and try again the next day, either. I was devastated. I had come to climb a mountain. So what, I’d have climbed half a mountain?

At 2:30 a.m., the same guide came back into the room to tell the group the gate was unlocked, but pressured them not to climb anyway due to the rain. Nope. No way. I’m climbing this fucking mountain. I sprang from my cot and went out to the common area of the hut, where I found the Dutch Bros and our guides.

“Can we go???” I asked.

“Yes, we can go. It is wet, but we can go,” one of our guides answered. “You are fast, so we let others go now and then we go.”

I layered up: two shirts, a fleece, a down jacket, a rain jacket, a poncho. Beanie, headlamp. Finally, those ridiculous, enormous red ski gloves.

At 3 a.m., an hour after that disorienting wake-up call, we began our ascent. It was dark, rainy, windy, and cold, and water ran steadily over the granite slab we were scrambling over. It was steeper and more difficult than the day before, but I pushed myself to keep up with the Dutch Bros again and over the next two hours, we passed every person who’d left before us and made it to the summit just before sunrise. The rain had stopped about an hour into the climb, and at the summit we stood above the clouds. My guide took some photos for me — my hands were so cold that my phone’s touchscreen wouldn’t recognize my bloodless fingers.

I was frozen to the bone and exhausted, but I’ll never forget the pure elation I felt upon reaching the summit of Mount Kinabalu. Because of the cold, I ditched the guys at the top and descended alone with my guide so I could keep my body moving. The mist cleared as I came down the mountain, and seeing what I had just climbed in the light of the morning, a couple unexpected tears fell from my eyes. Maybe it was altitude sickness or delirium, but I was overwhelmed. I felt so lucky. I was in Borneo. On top of a mountain. My body was capable of climbing that mountain. Icicle hands or not, in that moment I was fucking invincible.

After waiting for the Dutch Bros at the hut and consuming as much tea as physically possible, we charged down the rest of the mountain together. No, seriously, we ran down the mountain. I quickly realized this was a wholly idiotic decision, resulting in enormous blisters on each of my feet and destroyed knees to match. It also resulted in us breaking the record for fastest descent of Mount Kinabalu. Not really a record I was going for, but a record nonetheless!

So I did it, I climbed Mount Kinabalu, in probably the worst conditions allowable. And while I technically did it alone, my Dutch Bros kept spirits high and pushed me to my limits the whole way up (and down).

But the real MVP of my first mountain climbing endeavor? Those perfect, not-ridiculous-at-all, beautifully crafted GLOVES.



Dive Diaries

PADI Dive Instructor solo traveling & scuba diving, among other things. Most of my friends are fish.

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Tristen Mills

Written by

Reader. Writer. Dive Instructor. Feminist. Environmentalist. Human Being.

Dive Diaries

PADI Dive Instructor solo traveling & scuba diving, among other things. Most of my friends are fish.

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