Kota Kinabalu: Beaches and Mountains

Our first order of business in Kota Kinabalu was to head out to a beach resort a couple miles out of town. The beach was beautful, and very secluded. Our guesthouse was the only one around. The surf was big because of the violent storms that rolled through every night, so it was pretty fun.
It was partially overcast for most of our stay there, so sunscreen somewhat slipped my mind. I got a nice reminder how strong equatorial sun is, though...and a nice burn to drive the lesson home.

One evening Tim and Linda and I went on a river trip to go see the monkeys. There were quite a few of them, and we got to see a lot of the famous Borneo Proboscis monkey (the ones with the really big nose and the pot belly).

After a couple days beaching it, Laruel and Linda headed off to another beachside (5 star) resort while Tim, Wally, and I went to climb Mount Kinabalu. The guidebook called Kinabalu the "stairmaster of the East" or something along those lines. I'd say that's pretty accurate. The trail gains over 2000m of elevation in a little over 8km. Nearly a 25% grade. Tim and I spent a decent amount of time hiking doing trig calculations trying to figure out our angle of ascent.

We arrived early afternoon at the mountain lodge, 3200m elevation. We began referring to it as our Negative Star Resort, in light of Laurel and Linda's accomodation. After dinner we went to bed early in preparation for the pre-dawn summit. Woke up at 2am for breakfast, and found driving wind and rain. Crap. We didn't know if they'd allow us to summit, and the official "Do Not Climb" sign was up. However, after signing a waiver that basically said once we started climbing we were on our own (don't expect a rescue party), Tim, Wally, our guide, and I were the first group to head up. Maybe 10 minutes into the climb the sky cleared and the beautiful full moon came out. Awesome! In the clear. ...Until 3 minutes later when it started pouring rain and gusting at 30-40mph. Turns out Kinabalu has two types of weather: beautiful, or god awful. I basically crawled the first .5km (horrible balance in the dark, I was using all 4 limbs) until we got to the scramble. The last 2km of ascent were up the bare face of the mountain, while holding onto a rope. It was still raining really hard, and my hands were starting to numb in the 40 degree wetness. Wally decided the scramble wasn't for him and turned back. Tim and I kept on. After nearly falling off the mountain several times, my guide took my hand and I stopped using the rope. Things went much faster this way, and we trudged upwards for a while. It was pretty miserable, and when we were about 1 hour (and 1km) from the top, we decided that we weren't going to see a beautiful sunrise up there through the rain anyway, and to wait for light in a little hut along the side and then head back down.

Soon quite a few other groups joined us in the little hut and it got crowded. We headed back down at the first sign of brightness. On the way back down it cleared up for a few moments (literally about 10). Luckily we were in a good vantage point to get some pictures. After breakfast round 2, the hike back down was a quick 3.5 hours. Rope along the first part of the scramble. Got more shear after this.

Going down. Cold.

My guide Azme. Held my hand for about 2km. Saved me from falling off the mountain....several times.