The day of the climb!
We’ve gone for a very early start which is just fine with me, I need as much time as I can get for the first 6km straight up to the overnight accommodation spot, Laban Rata.
First though we had to walk the 500m back to park HQ. It must have been around 300m into this 500m walk that I started to wonder how on earth I was going to manage the rest of the mountain, I put on a brave face though, that was until Lauren said ‘I’m shattered and we haven’t even started yet!!:-)’ Ok good at least I’m not alone here.
Once at park HQ we checked in and paid the balance of the trip, next stop was finding a guide. You have to have a guide to climb the mountain, not to actually guide you as such as the first part of the trail is very easy to follow, just unfortunately not easy to climb apparently, but I think they just insist on a guide cause tomorrow the climbing is real serious climbing and this way someone is responsible for you if anything goes wrong.
Lajuni is our guide and after collecting our packed lunch arranges for us to get a cab to Timpohon Gate, the start point. Its 5km from HQ to the gate and no-one apart from the serious crazy (!) walk this as well. The package we’re bought is really good actually, we get a bed for the night, a big packed lunch to set off with then dinner once we reach Laban Rata (our bed for the night) and then a supper breakfast at 2am the next morning (!!) then a summit return breakfast at 9am then a lunch at the park HQ after the hike, so we’re more than set up for food.
At the start
So the trail on the first day as far as Laban Rata is 6km reaching a height of 3272.7 m above sea level. So we set off! The 1st km was fine and even the 2nd km was fine and actually even the 3rd km was ok and if I’m honest the 4th km wasn’t impossible. After that though it started to take its toll. It wasn’t the distance obviously as the entire length of the trek up and down isn’t a great deal, but the fact that it’s at altitude and also the fact that its 99% straight up is beginning to take its toll. :-(
This is where we were headed!
The first 3km we did in really good time and everything was looking good, we stopped at the 4km mark for lunch and it was freezing. I think it was more the fact that we had been sweating cause of walking and then of course stopped and just happened to stop in the middle of a cloud that did it, what also didn’t help was the tiny squirrels that were after my lunch (that’s what happens when tourists feed the wildlife!) We wrapped up in all our gear and somewhere there’s a picture of the two of us looking very cold (don’t think I’ll publish that one). After lunch it was just another 2km to our night stop, mmm just another 2km huh?? There were distance markers all the way which was a good thing going up I think but not sure how good it’s gonna be going down tomorrow. The last 500m was tough but finally Laban Rata was in sight. We had walked through several different vegetation ssytems, just when you thought you were coming into the tree line where the vegetation was much smaller in size and large trees can't grow, all of a sudden you're back amongst rainforest again, it was an incredible trek up, really interesting.
Laban Rata
The first part of the hike can take between 4 and 6 hours and we did it in 4 and a half. I was very happy with this, especially since I knew tomorrow wouldn’t be such a great time, and even more especially I knew the descent would take time.
On the hike up!
Laban Rata is half way up the mountain and can house around 100 plus people I believe although in the main building only around 60, so everyone else is in little huts dotted around the hillside. We checked in at the main office to be told we were staying in one of the many outside huts which was another few hundred metres from where we were. Due to the layout of it all and timings we had to walk backwards and forwards from the hut to the main building several times for dinner and breakfast etc and by our calculations we did at least another km more than people in the main building! We were hard core climbers!
Our house for the night
At the start of the day at HQ we were warned that as it was the dry season and a very dry season this year there was no water at the top, this was no water for showers but even worse no water for the toilets. So during check-in at Laban Rata when we were told how far away our hut was we were also told that because of this and because it was higher than anywhere else we actually had water and it was hot water, that alone made us forgo a little rest stop here and carry on to the hut for a shower.
Our hut was actually very comfortable, it had just 4 beds, 2 bunks and as we were the first to arrive we both decided on the lower bunks, then we realised there was no towels! All this is supposed to be included which is why we didn’t bring our own. I really couldn’t face walking back down to the main building and walking back up again, actually it wasn’t so much I couldn’t face it but more I knew I wouldn’t make it!
Lauren though, being a little star, and desperate for a shower (:-)) headed off to try and get some, 25 mins later she returns empty handed apparently the towels aren’t arriving till 4pm, she was not happy at all, nor would I be though if I had just walked back down there for nothing. Our beds each had two pillows and seeing as we both only needed one we decided to take the pillow cases off of the extra pillow and use that. Actually it worked a treat and I think worked better than my travel towel, at least the pillow case got me dry!
We managed to grab a very quick ‘cold’ shower in between several guys coming up from the main building and collecting the water and then we headed down to wait for dinner.
They have a little shop in the hostel and I really fancied a coke, well apart from them not having any, if they had of had one it would have cost me 5 times what it would have cost anywhere else in Borneo, I would have paid it though. The beers, not that I wanted one, were also 5 times more expensive. Some people were partaking though.
Dinner was lovely and there was so much of it, they’re certainly feeding us well on this trip. We enjoyed a lovely sunset from the hostel before trekking back to our hut for sleep. First though we had to boil some water for drinking as they didn’t have any bottles of water either. We’re still on our own in the hut which is strange as all the accommodation is supposed to be booked up. We wrapped ourselves up in all our warm clothes, got inside our sleeping bag liners and then under three blankets, oh did I forget to say, it’s also an unheated hut at 3272.7m above sea level (!). Amazingly though it wasn’t too cold, I mean it was cold but not impossibly cold. What was impossible was sleeping for some reason. I mean we should be shattered, we’ve hiked half way up this mountain and have had a good dinner we really should be falling asleep, I think my problem is the 4 cups of tea I had at dinner! :-( The pair of us laid there for hours trying to get to sleep with no luck and of course what was constantly on my mind was how I needed to sleep if I was going to have any chance of climbing tomorrow. Just as we were both about to drop off the door to the hut came crashing open and a couple of voices could be heard chatting, no-one actually came into the hut and after about 10 mins of the door being left open I got up and slammed it shut and locked it. An hour later and we still couldn’t sleep and once again the same people came crashing through the door with their main priority seeming to be to plug in their blackberry phone to charge (thing is there’s no electricity here either but I really wasn’t in the mood for telling them) they then dumped their gear and got into bed fully clothed and as soon as the guy above me put his head on the pillow he started snoring!! That really was the final straw in my book............finally though we did manage to get some sleep but only three hours in the end :-(
The sunset from Laban Rata was stunning.
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