Kinabalu, Day 1

Mt. Kinabalu

We are now about 11,000 feet up on Mt. Kinabalu. It was a hard slog today and Ms. Cupcake was a trooper for the effort. We went a bit more than 8 km of more or less straight up (with a bit of straight down). It was a tough 6 hours that were rewarded with a lack of heat and hot water at the Laban Rata lodge. Not great. We are so tired anyhow that I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Climbing the mountain was indeed quite beautiful. You go through several types of forest on your way up and pass some beautiful waterfalls. We chose to do the longer (by 2 km) Mesilau trail to get up the mountain and were rewarded with almost no other climbers and several waterfalls on the trail, but severely punished by the extra 2 km of up and down. Ms. Cupcake definitely did not appreciate my choice of route.

Tomorrow morning at 2am we wake to summit. It’s 6pm and we are headed to bed.

A large pitcher plant