To the top (Mount Kinabalu - the end)

So we had resigned ourselves to not making it to the top of Mount Kinabalu. We were busy taking pictures of the views from where we had stopped, or maybe we were trying to make ourselves look busy while everyone else was on their way up. Up until sunrise, after we had shut down, we still could not see how far off the peak was, all we had to go on was the trail of flashlights that disappeared off into the distance (and even that could mean that they just went over the ridge and onwards for another X number of miles). Nope, our decision was sound. Sound it was until after we had taken all the pictures we could of the path we had taken up, and now, in the glorious morning light we turned around to take pictures of the path we should have been on all along. Looking up the path we saw that the peak was actually within striking distance. Jose, who earlier said he’d go “explore” the trail upwards when we decided to stop had not come down yet and so we knew he had made it to the top and it was starting to be depressing watching people come down from the top.

Suiee and I looked at each other and decided to make a go of it. Almost immediately all the aches and pain came back but this time we had gone beyond the point of quitting again. Nope this time, we played our little hopscotch game all the way to the top. It is at this point I would like to point out that I reached the top before Suiee and so with that action I hoped to deflect that little embarrassing episode before where I nearly quit and he hadn’t. The upside to being the last people up on the peak is that you have the place all to yourselves and more importantly, the sun had risen and you could see all around you. The ultra marathoners and adventure racers that practically ran their way to the top made it while it was still pitch dark and so they saw nothing of the surrounding views. The rest who did catch a little of the sunrise could only stay for a while since the peak was a small patch of level rock not capable of handling more than 10-15 people at one time. Suiee and I on the other hand could while away our time on the top and bask in our accomplishment. After a while however, our guide informed us that we had to make our way home since the daily rains would be coming in soon and so we met up with Jose and started on our way down. As if by clockwork, the rains started and by the time we reached the ranger station we were soaking wet. It didn’t matter though, by that time we had reached the top and did what we came to do. We had climbed our first (and probably our only) foreign mountain. We stepped through the gate, the ranger closed it behind us and that was that.