Tuesday and Wednesday of this week saw me hiking Mount Kinabalu, AKA the Beast. 8.30am on Tuesday morning was the start of what was to be quite an adventure, and little did I know what was to happen.
The group had the option to hike the easy trail, or the hard trail. For reasons unknown to me, we chose the harder trail, which entailed 8 hours of solid uphill hiking, sometimes scrambling on our hands and knees to reach a checkpoint.
About 3 hours into the hike, the heavens opened (which has become a regular feature in Borneo- it rains here. A lot). The rain was a nonstop, heavy downpour, and we were soaked to the skin, with waterlogged shoes, within a matter of minutes. The trail had turned into a river/waterfall and there was the classic approach avoidance conflict of knowing the water had leeches lurking in it, waiting to attach and suck your blood, but also knowing that you have to keep walking. What do you do?! It's a rock or a hard place.
After 8 long hours, we reached Laban Rata, the checkpoint for the summit and the place of rest before the final push. Luckily, our group was in a nearby dormitory so we did not have to hike further up the mountain to get to our beds. After a cup of hot Milo it was bedtime at 6.30pm as we had to be awake for the 2am summit climb. This was where the problems really started.
No- one really slept that night as I think we were all over tired from the first days' hike, and nervous about what the next morning would bring. 2am came around and we strapped on our wet hiking boots ready to start the summit climb. I had no dry clothes due to no radiators in the dorms so was wearing my pajama top with robots on (thanks Cuz!) and leggings, with red knee high socks over the top, which wasn't particularly warm or stylish.
Outside was pitch black- all we could see was the few feet in front of us lit by head torches. The trail soon became very steep, and after about 1km, became completely vertical with a series of ropes that were used to pull ourselves up the mountain. We had no idea if the trail was on a sheer cliff face or not, which added to the fear levels.
In Bolivia and Peru, I suffered quite badly from altitude sickness but didn't think it would pose a problem in Borneo because Kinabalu is 4,000 metres, which is nowhere near as high as some of the mountains I hiked in South America. It did not occur to me that we ascended 1,000 metres in 2 hours for the final push, and as a result, at about 25 feet from the top of the mountain, I became quite unwell.
The girls I was hiking with kept encouraging me to go on, but by this stage, I couldn't see straight (it was like being drunk, when the world spins and images have trouble keeping up with your eyes), nor could I really speak coherently. A passing guide saw me fall over and took it upon himself to carry me up the final section, which was kind of him but didn't really help the situation as with altitude sickness, the only cure is going down, not up.
At the summit, I perched on a rock and couldn't even lift my head to admire the view. I felt utterly awful and must have looked like I'd had a few too many in the restaurant the night before the climb. Luckily, one of our guides took one look at me and dragged me back down the mountain (there was a lot of dragging going on that day). He had one hand around my waist to support me as I was unable to walk straight, and one hand on the rope to ensure that we did not slip off the side of the mountain, which was a distinct possibility. I lost count of the number of times I fell over simply because the guide was running across all these huge rocks and at one point, my arm was ripped from the socket because I was sliding away from him and he tried to pull me back.
It was only when we were halfway back down to Laban Rata that I could focus my eyes again and realised just how sheer the edges of the mountain were. In England, the climb would never happen without proper safety equipment and clothing- I was wearing a pajama top with robots on, for goodness sake!
Luckily, back at Laban Rata I had some breakfast, a cup of tea and was able to get down the mountain, but it was an experience I am not keen to revisit in a hurry.
Hannah + high altitude = recipe for disaster!
