Diyanazman Travel Blog

After staying at the peak for 30 minutes, at 6.25am, it was time for us to go back to Kinabalu Park.

Ascending Mount Kinabalu up to the SUMMIT is considered not so hard. However, believe it or not…the WORST part of conquering Mount Kinabalu is descending the mountain. Before coming to Mount Kinabalu, I never though that descending could be harder that ascending the mountain.

But now.. I have to say that climbing down Mount Kinabalu is the WORST experience in my life.

We arrived Sayat-sayat Check point at 7.26am.

8.25am – Arrived Laban Rata and we have nasi goreng for breakfast. Then, we took some rest at our room for while.

Above the clouds

10.00am – Check out from our room at Laban Rata and continue descending the mountain.

At this moment, we started to feel pain at both of our leg muscles and groins but we still believe it is going to be fine.

After a while then we know that we were totally wrong. The pain become WORST and WORST. Only GOD knows how terrible it was. It did not only happen to us.. it was also the same with other climbers. It was a total nightmare and I just wish that there would be a helicopter to come and rescue us because every step that we took hurt us even more.

The only way to reduce the pain during descending iss running down. However, the mountain was too slippery for a first timer like us.

The view was breathtaking.

10.23am – Arrived at Pondok Waras

10.41am – Arrived at Pondok Paka.

11.18am – Arrived at Pondok Layang-layang and took a break.

12.00pm – Arrived at Pondok Mempening.

12.36pm – Arrived at Pondok Lowi.

A very cute squirrel

1.21pm – Arrived at Pondok Ubah.

After Pondok Ubah I just couldn’t record our timeline anymore. The legs were too hurting for me to do something else. I also stopped taking pictures after Pondok Paka.

At last after around 4 hours of disastrous journey from Laban Rata, then we arrived back at Timpohon Gate at 2.25pm.

Soon after that, the bus came and pick us up to Kinabalu Park’s main office.

2.45am – We arrived at Kinabalu Park Main Office ( Sutera Sanctuary Office ). We had to pay RM20 for the certificates. (RM10 for each)

Looked at how stiff our legs are…

Total time for descending – 6 hours 25 minutes.
( Kinabalu’s peak – Laban Rata : 2 hours & Laban Rata – Timpohon Gate : 4 hours 25 minutes ). 1 hour 35 minutes faster than ascending!! But one million times more terrible, tiring and painful…

At last we successfully conquered Mount Kinabalu!! It took us the total of exactly 8 hours from Timpohon Gate to Kinabalu’s Summit. 5 hours from Timpohon Gate to Laban Rata and 3 hours from Laban Rata to Kinabalu’s summit. Our guide, William Apin said, we are considered quite-fast climbers. Although we were delayed for about 45 minutes to start off from Laban Rata, we still managed to watch the sunrise from the PEAK. Great!!

We stayed at the PEAK for 30 minutes from 5.55am until 6.25am. The temperature at the SUMMIT is freezing, possibly around 0~3 degree celcius. So, it is better for you to wear gloves. Almost all other climbers arrived Kinabalu’s peak at around the same time, so we cannot stay at the peak for long time.

Take a look at some of wonderful pictures from the SUMMIT OF MOUNT KINABALU…

With Peter and his sister

It took just another 1km to reach the summit from Sayat-sayat checkpoint. However, most of the climbers that failed to reach to the summit…actually failed during this last climbing part.

Main reason of failure is…altitude sickness! So..don’t climb to fast to reduce the potential of getting altitude sickness -if you are first timer like us.

The thin air makes it difficult to breath. You will get tired for every 3 steps. So, you need to take at least 2-3 minutes rest in every 3-5 steps!! Crazy!

When the time was already 5.45am…we were still far from the top. I worried that we miss to watch the sunrise from the peak. So.. I told Diyana that I brought my heavy handycam just to capture the video of sunrise from the peak and I didn’t want to waste it. Diyana understand me quite well..so she let me go first!

There were no need to wait anymore. I just ran to Kinabalu’s peak leaving Diyana walking slowly far behind.

5.55am – I arrived at the KINABALU LOW’s PEAK !!! YEAH!! Then I setup the handycam and wait for the sunrise and also Diyana.

6.05am – Diyana reached the LOW’s PEAK !!! YEAHHHH !!!

We made it!!!

We woke up at 2.30am. It was quite late. Luckily, we didn’t need to take a bath at Laban Rata. Only crazy people take a bath there. There are no water heater. The water temperature is freezing!!

3.00am – We started our journey from Laban Rata to the Summit. It was completely dark..so we need to use our head lights.

3.30am – 6.5km mark.

4.00am – 7km mark.

4.23am – We arrived at Sayat-Sayat Checkpoint. Once we were there, it means that we were promised a certificate but in black and white colour. We can only get the colourful certificate if we manage to achieve the hike to the summit.

After hiking for 5 hours, we arrived at Mount Kinabalu’s last base, Laban Rata. Laban Rata is situated 3272km above sea level and the temperature during our arrival is 12 degree celcius.

Once we arrived, we took a rest at Laban Rata cafe and ordered a pot of hot Milo. It costs RM5 per pot.

After discussing with our guide, we agreed to start hiking to the summit later at 2.30am because we would like to arrive at the peak before sunrise. It would be a great opportunity to watch the beautiful sunrise from the highest place in Malaysia.

Our room at Laban Rata costs RM50 per bed. So the total for two of us is RM100. However, this amount has been included in the payment during our reservation with Sutera Sanctuary.

We got Room No.6 – Buttercup Room.

One room has two double-decker beds. So, the total there were 4 beds. Our roommates were a man called Peter & his sister from Canada.

Peter and his sister. She was suffering severe headache due to altitude sickness.

Night at Laban Rata is very cool. Temperature at around 8 degree Celcius. However a room heater can only be turned on at 8pm. So, while waiting for the heater and go to sleep… we celebrated Diyana’s birthday with a cup cake!!

I slept at top bunker and Diyana at the bottom. So, when we activated the heater that was placed on the floor, I was the one that felt the heat. It was very very HOT and I was sweating a lot and my sweat had wet my bed. However, since I wanted to be nice with Peter that activated the heater… I just kept silence.

After 30 minutes, I can’t stand it anymore and go out from the room. Surprisingly, I found Peter sleeping outside just beside the door!. The reason… it was very HOT to sleep inside but he didn’t want to turn off the heater because he thought that I wanted to sleep in hot condition!..Hahahaha..

Then, we turn off the heater and go to sleep!

After resting for about 5 minutes at Pondok Paka, we continued..

12.27am – 5.5km mark.

12.53am – Arrived at Pondok Waras.

12.59am – We made it to Laban Rata. Temperature at Laban Rata,12 degree Celcius.

12 deg Celsius

It was very chilly but Diyana wore short sleeves…

After stopping for lunch for about 10 minutes, we continued our journey..

10.58am – 4km mark. It started raining when we arrived at this mark. So, we had to wear our raincoats.

11.27am – 4.5km mark.

11.44am – Arrived at Pondok Villosa.

11.50am – 5.0km mark.

12.12am – Arrived at Pondok Paka. Took a break and had Snickers for energy!

Everything was still fine until Pondok Lowi. Then..we continued..

9.31am – 2.5km mark.

9.48am – 3.0km mark.

10.00am – Arrived at Pondok Mempening.

A porter steadily carrying a gas tank when we could hardly carry anything but ourselves…

10.20am – 3.5km mark.

10.40am – Arrived at Pondok Layang-layang. This hut is actually at the junction of Timpohon route and Mesilau route. So from this hut onwards, all the climbers from Timpohon and Mesilau will be sharing the same route.

We stopped here for lunch.

Cold!

We arrived at Timpohon Gate at 8.00am and started hiking at 8.05am.

8.13am – We arrived at the 0.5km mark. Diyana started to feel dizzy and she felt like puking already. Aisey…this is unbelievable. We had another 8km and Diyana already tired at 0.5km. I was very much worried.  We already spent a lot of money, time and annual leave for this trip. I hope Diyana could make it. Luckily, after she ate a bar of Snickers, She is BACK!..Oh yeah.. Lega…but I was still worrying.

8.23am – We arrived at the first resting hut, Pondok Kandis.

Tired already?

8.32am – 1km mark.

8.46am – Arrived at Pondok Uboh.

Looking tired…

8.56am – 1.5km mark.

9.09am – 2.0km mark. We took some rest for a while at this mark.

9.19am – Arrived at Pondok Lowi.

We wake up early this morning. Pack all our stuff and food. We bring 2 small backpacks. Diyana brings one backpack with only food inside and I brings all the others stuff..sweaters, long sleeves shirts, winter gloves, head lights, raincoats and also a cup cake for Diyana’s birthday. I also bring a pouch bag to put my digital camera & handycam.

7.30am – We go to Sutera Santuary Office to get our guide. Our guide’s name is William Apin. He is the one that will take care of us and that will give confirmation to the office whether we really arrive at the summit or not for certification purpose. For identification of every climbers, we have been given a tag with a group number. My tag number is AC09 (1) & Diyana gets AC09 (2).

Then, we need to check-out from our room at Peak Lodge. If you have any bags, you can keep it at their office for RM10 per bag. However, since we have a rental car with us, so we just keep it in our car boot and leave the car parked in front of our lodge.

At this moment, we need to decide on which route to the peak that we prefer, Timpohon – Summit – Timpohon or Mesilau – Summit – Mesilau. Since Timpohon route is easier and faster, we choose Timpohon route.

To get to Timpohon Gate, we also need to decide either we would like to use shuttle bus or by walking. Since we don’t want to get tired before its really starting…so we just pay RM30 for shuttle bus. ( RM15 per person ).

8.00am – We arrive at Timpohon Gate. There is a shop at this gate selling food for lunch. We already bring our own food, so we aren’t buy anything there.

8.05am – Our mission begin….