Mount Kinabalu 2010 - Stairway to Heaven

Climbing day dawned bright and clear.  I loaded up at the hotel on pancakes and peanut butter, and we headed out for the 90-minute drive to the national park at the base of Mt. Kinabalu.  The mountain got bigger as we got closer.  Yes, we're starting from down here and going way up there.

Waiting with us were several other groups of people, namely a large groups of Taiwanese tourists.  I helped take a few pictures of the group, and they were thoroughly entertained by my attempt at Mandarin.  "Yi, er, san!"  I counted.  I noticed that a lot of them were not wearing hiking shoes, some even wearing those slip-on canvas shoes.  Well, maybe David was right, I thought.  If they can do it...

Having carefully arranged our backpacks the night before, I was a little irritated that right before we headed onto the path they handed us a large cloth bag with our pre-packed lunch inside.  Where in the world was I supposed to put this?  I barely had enough room for my camera, let alone a plastic tupperware container the size of a cake pan.  So giving me another 15-minute reprieve, David opened up his bag and re-packed our lunch.  Okay, now we're ready.

It was a six-kilometer hike to base camp, with one planned rest stop at the 4-kilometer mark for lunch.  The first kilometer was deceptively easy, with even a couple of flat parts.  This might even be fun, I started thinking.

Then, the stairs started.

It's not so much that the stairs were really big, it was that they kept relentlessly going up.  And up.  And up.  There was never more than two or three paces of flat between hundreds of wooden stairs, rock and boulder stairs.

I never really saw David that much, he left me behind with Rony (our guide) most of the time.  Who seemed like a nice guy, but wasn't much of a conversationalist.  (This is pretty much David's MO, when he says he wants to do things like this "with me", he doesn't really mean "with" me, he just means he wants me there at the end to hang out with and have a celebration beer.)

There was a disappointing lack of wildlife along the way.  "Will we see any snakes?" I asked hopefully.  "Monkeys?"  "No, don't worry, just birds and squirrels."  "Oh."  There were some cool plants, though.  David, when he did wait for me, tried to engage me in a discussion of how some ferragated leaves were designed to maximize surface tension to hold the rain water.  I ignored him, instead pointing to the wild orchids and saying "Look, pretty flowers!."  The huge pitcher plants were the highlight.  Lots of dead bugs inside.

Stopping briefly at the 4K mark for a lunch of ham-and-cheese sandwiches and hard boiled eggs, we donned another layer and trudged on, as it was getting too cold to stop for long.  The first four kilometers took us two hours.  The last two kilometers?  Also two hours.  A blistering pace of one kilometer an hour.  I had even trained for this, that's how hard it was.

It doesn't look that bad?  Get on a Stairmaster.  Press start.  Now keep going for four hours.  Other people had paid local porters to haul their stuff up (extra water, warm clothes for the summit, etc.), and these guys blew by us at regular intervals.  One guy was hauling two propane tanks on his back, and he didn't even look winded.  I consoled myself with the thought that they must just be used to the altitude.  I took exactly one picture during the last two kilometers, concentrating only on going up one step at a time.

I cannot express in words how relieved I was to finally reach base camp.  Rest!  But hold on, you have to climb over a hundred more stairs to get to the bunk house.  My goal for the day was simply not to cry.  So far so good, but the climb wasn't over yet.

We staked our claim on our bunks, and then tried to keep warm while we waited for dinner.

After dinner, we pretty much just sat around eating granola bars and taking cloud pictures.  The clouds are pretty cool when you're above them.

The sun set around 8pm, and I headed into my sleeping bad to try to catch some sleep.  Unfortunately the big Singaporean group that was in the room next to us had decided to stay up the whole night in order to not feel worse when the 2am wake-up call came, so sleep was not to be had.  (I've heard that the loudest groups of people are the Italians and the Koreans, but Singaporeans have to be a close third.)

As I lay in my bunk with my headphones (Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, you think if anything that could put me to sleep) I tried to mentally prep myself for the next day.  How many layers should I wear?  Should I try to go hard and just get it over with, or a little slower and try to enjoy it just a little bit?  Is that old Japanese guy going to be faster than me?  Probably, those guys are hard core.  What's going to be for breakfast?  I hope it's not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again.  Are there bathrooms that high up?  I'm hungry again already what if I didn't bring enough granola bars?  What if we have to walk behind these loud people the whole rest of the way?

I hear David get up at 1:30am to start to get ready, and then my 2:00am wake-up call arrives.  Here we go.