Peak Ace at 4000+meters! Gipfelsieg!

You can drive up Austrians highest mountain (3798m) with your vehicle. South East Asia has one (big) mountain with 4095m and you cannot drive up there – just hiking, but two days trekking gets rewarded an impressive view over the World Heritage Site ‘Kinabalu National Park’, lots of different plants/animals, phenomenal sunset and sunrise, great scenery… Big picture special!

“Auffe muasse!”

Kinabalu National Park

Kinabalu park headquarters is at 1,563 m – this is where you have to confirm your obligatory 100EUR dormbed, you have to sign up for an insurance, get the climbing permit, gather a guide, pick up the food bons and a lunch packet; and one hour later – voila, you are officially allowed to start climbing!

I searched for a climbers group to share a guide, and found Carolyn and Andy from Great Britain. The next four hours we hiked in a quite good speed up the mountain (and passed several tired hikers 😉 ) to the rest station at about 3000 meters called ‘Laba Rata’. After some time our guide was behind us and we didn’t see him anymore for a long time. Maybe he was not fast enough to follow our speed, or he just let us go because he knew that it is nearly impossible to loose the way…

Up the way to Laban Rata, 3000m

During the ascend we were able to see the different layers of vegetation. Tropical Mountain-Forest reaches up to 1800 meters and covers e.g. 40 different kinds of oak trees (D: Eiche) etc. Vegetation gets lower the higher you get, and vegetation at the ground gets more and more consolidated. Here also lots of parasitic plants can be seen. Tropical Fog-Forest reaches up to 3300 meters: lichens (D: Flechten), moss and orchids cover low trees. Bush abundantly covered with vegetation makes walking next to the path impossible. The Alpine Layer above has nearly no green / free of vegetation and you have to walk on pure granit plates.

Several times on the way we stop and expect some birds etc, but it was completely silent. I cannot remember when I heard completely nothing outside. At about 3 o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at Laban Rata, a rest station. Sometimes they have hot water for showering, and depending on the hut in which you are staying – you even don’t have to leave and go to an sanitary barrack. But I lived in such a hut and they didn’t have hot water. It was sooo great to warm yourself with this hot homemade Sutera Sanctuary Tee while waiting for dinner. We were hungry and would have eaten everything warm; but with this excellent buffet they offered so much that we couldn’t even try all of the dishes… Full stomach,watching the sunset in front of the hut and tired (actually the night before climbing I just slept 2 hours, cause I had to organize some important things), but I couldn’t go to bed – I got caught by the awesome sunset, just were able to leave after the last rays of sunlight have been gone…

Nightly ascend to the summit

Covered in warm, cozy blankets during the freezing night made it difficult to leave the bed at 2 in the morning. But we did, took a breakfast and got ready for the final hike. Switching on the torches, putting on two more layers of clothes – and here we go. It was freezing cold, but walking heats you up – especially when after about half an hour the rock-section started: climbing on pure granit blocks, some ropes to hold yourself on. Everything done in the dark. We had good sight, there was just a few days after fullmoon. Ad moon – this clear night produced such an impressive view on the moon and the stars; and the moon was surrounded by a cloud circle, a really strange and unearthly view.

I never thought that climbing up a high mountain is such a fight between the own brain and the body, and that most of it is a mental thing. But it is, body feels alright, legs are okay, but brain complains that there is too less air and circuit hyperventilates. Working on ones own breathing technique is really important, and always having in mind that you can make it, also with less air. But now I can feel with Asthma-patients or my father with his cat-allergy when they have breathing problems. And it was freeeeezing cold, degrees around zero, waiting half an hour for the sunrise in the cold. But you get rewarded already in the waiting time with a wonderful yellow/red sky, blue/white/red colored clouds and the feeling that you are higher than everything else around you, you are on a mountain double the size than the mountains around you, seeing the clouds below you, the sun and the wind breaking up the clouds, the view gets clearer and the sun comes up. The sun colors the smaller peaks into a warm, mild yellow light – just beautiful as you see on the pix…

The way down – and the day after

After the beautiful sunrise we are leaving the summit, hiking the way down on the granit rocks to Laban Rata again, take a good breakfast and continue our descent. Going down from 4000 to 1500 meters within 5 hours and just one break inbetween, and driving back the last meters completely down to sea level. The hands feel swollen and thick, the plastic bottle I opened last at 1500 meters is shrinked in itself, and the right knee and hip are a bit hurting, all leg-related muscles are starting to ache… But we made it till the end – not like the ‘dynamic’ french guy we met: On the first day he was energetic and very fast, but then we passed him when we were going down, he just was humpling down the last part backwards because he couldn’t move forward any more…

Back in Kota Kinabalu I bought some Tiger Balsam which will get me up again to do the jungle tour planned for the next days…

Meanings of ‘Kinabalu’, Tales

Kinabalu is extracted from the short form for the Kadazan Dusun word ‘Aki Nabalu’, meaning “the revered place of the dead”.
The second source states that the name “Kinabalu” actually means “Cina Balu” (which would fully mean “A Chinese Widow”). The tale tells from a Malay Lady who fell in love with a Chinese sailor. He promised to go to China, prepare everything and pick his loved lady up to marry her. His parents disagreed and with the Chinese concepts of respect to parents, anticipatory obedience (D: vorauseilender Gehorsam) etc. he stayed in China and married the girl his parents picked. In the meanwhile the Malay Lady waited everyday, climbing up the mountain at every sunrise, returning only at night to attend to her growing children. She got ill because of the cold, the mountain turned her into stone because of its admiration to her. Fazit: “The mountain is a symbol of the everlasting love and loyalty that should be taken as a good example by women.” (absoluteastronomy.com)