A good day to climb. Driving up to the Timpohon gate with my mountain guide we almost ran over a beautiful tropical colored green parrot looking bird in the middle of the road gobbling down a fresh worm. Little did I know this would be symbolic for my climb today up the mountain. The mountain is clear this morning. Onward and upward. I am the only one doing the one-day climb today up Mount Kinabalu. 7:30 AM and we started the climb out of the gate. the trail ascends up and up with big stair steps and few places of overlooks towards the mountain or out into the valley. The trail was through the jungle much like Taman Negara. We saw very few people in the morning. The only one joining us were the porters who were carrying up supplies for all the people who spend the night. The spendthenighters were probably climbing down from the summit as I was just beginning my climb. My guide Freddie and I made good time and arrived at the Lapan Rata guest house cafe before 10AM. The place was full of climbers eating their breakfast buffet for 45 ringgits. As soon as we arrived at Lapan Rata, the rains arrived. Heavy rains started. These rains were supposed to start at 1PM. If the rains continued, we would not be able to continue. The rains stopped and allowed us to climb another couple hundred meters up to the ropes section. And here we waited and chanted and hummed for 15 minutes until the blue skies appeared and the rains lightened and we agreed to climb on up the ropes. That lasted about 50 feet. The rock face was too slippery. We called the climb off and headed back down – remembering – the early bird gets the worm.
Wonder where in the world we were a year ago?
https://oneworldtwokids.com/2012/07/05/11
oneworldtwokids 