2am came quick. It was FREEZING inside, even though we were the only hut to have heat (they left the windows open). We had a "supper" waiting downstairs for us and THEY HAD OATMEAL WOOO! I was bundled in a workout shirt, poly pro, fleece, and my fleece lined jacket, gloves, hat, and head lamp and the guys had the same. And two layers of pants. And our bag packs. We were SET! We walked outside into the pitch black and it was oddly warm... But we seemed to one of the few parties to leave first, so we started up the first 700m of pure steep iron wood steps to the rock face. Thomas told us all the steps were made from iron wood harvested in Malaysia, it was very neat. At 700m up, we reached out first obstacle. Keep in mind, all we have are head lamps and it had been raining for about 8 hours previous, so it was WET! For the rest of the 2.5km to the peak (at about 8.5km from the gate) there was a rope attached to the rock faces for us to use and follow. This 500m was part ledge, part actual climb. We scooted along a small edge near a cliff only holding the rope with our hands. Then, we had to scale the mountain using the rope up. The hard part was more the other people around us who decided to stop, so you had to stop while climbing to wait. The rest of the way was even harder. It was a steady steep climb of rock face at about a 50 degree incline (I'm guessing this, but it was definitely steeper than 45 degrees). We used the rope on the rock to guide us, but the rock was slippery and it was getting very cold. We reached the final check point where we had to show our ID's to prove we had a guide and we had a nice rest for a few minutes for the last bathroom up the mountain.
I finally got to sit down and look at the sky. I turned off my headlamp, and as we were out in front, there wasn't alot of light pollution up top. It was the clearest I've ever seen. When you look at photos of the milky way, you can see the actual variations of "black" in them, the sky color, the lighter part that looks like clouds, and the blackest black in between, and up here, you could absolutely differentiate between the different levels! I've never seen it before! You could see every star and planet. I saw the little dipper, but that's all I recognized. I saw 6 meteors just sitting there for <10 minutes. Amazing!!!!! All my fellow space nerd would have been envious hahaha
The rest of the climb was cold, even windier as there was nothing blocking it, and I was starting to freak myself out. We literally couldn't see more than what our little headlamps gave us. I kept imagining that the edge was only a few feet away so I kept my head down and kept tracking. I was terrified I was going to fall off a ledge and I didn't even know where it was. The air was much thinner (obviously) and finally we saw a tiny light from what looked like the summit. We saw a few people who had reached the top and came down to take shelter in some boulders from the wind. They said there's little to stand and wanted to wait down here for sunrise. But we kept on going up. We finally reached the summit at 525am on March 16th. The peak has grown since the sign was put up to 4141m, about 13,454ft. Man, was is cold! I would say 30 degrees with howling winds. The sign was posted alot the highest boulder, but there was a gathering of boulders on top, so we climbed behind the sign with Thomas and found a little nook to snuggle in away from the wind. We still had about 30-45 minutes until official sunrise. We ate goo packs and fought over who got to be in the middle.
The sun started to rise behind us ( we were facing north west) and we could finally start to make out some things. That huge bright orange glow wayy off in the distance was probably a burning oil rig in the ocean. We could see the coast line and mountains all the way to Indonesia (Indonesia is multiple islands, part of which is the majority on Borneo. Google it :) ). And we got to see the landscape. It was no other. Everything around us was flat rock. But steep, flat rock. There were cliffs from the summit down 100s of feet to the nearest point. There were other lower jagged peaks surrounding us from all sides. The actual sun was blocked by clouds, but the sunrise was still amazing. It was hard to get pictures. We took our final photos at the top and started the decent. By this time, there was a line of people waiting to get their photo taking, balancing and freezing on the steep rock faces, so we took a different route down from the towering peak to the steep incline we had ascended hours before. By now, we could see that it looks like flat rock that had all been tilted by a steep grade at once, it was very even. It's a bit hard to explain, look at the photos. But the surrounding peaks were just as spectacular! As the run continued to rise, we could see the sea of clouds in the distance, the twin peaks of the Indonesian mountains to the south, and the sunlight would hit the other numerous peaks. The photos I took are incredible!
We took our time getting down since we realized that we weren't going to fall to our deaths and the weather warms up quickly and the wind had died down. Thomas took me aside for a mini photo shoot near a pool of water, which reflected me and a peak in the back for a very neat photo. This was the moment when I took the majority of the nearly 800 photos during our week trip. We took our time getting down, even though I kept slipping on the wet rock, but Thomas grabbed my hand and led me down some ways hahaha. There's not much to write about descending back down to Laban Rata, just photos. So go on facebook!!!!
We made it down to Laban Rata by 830am and ate our final breakfast and packed our bags for the descent down. Thomas was waiting at 930am, and we started our descent down the mountain. This was the hard part for us (meaning me and dad) as down is more painful on the knees than up. By this time, the clouds had set in, so our breathtaking views were quickly obstructed. We made fewer stops, but went at a very slow pace to not hurt ourselves. We had fun talking (about the Army, what else? haha) and made it down to the park HQ that afternoon for a quick lunch before transferring to the hot springs.
We arrived to the hot springs after a 45 minute drive from the park. Our guide spent 5 years in Kansas and Singapore, so we had a good time chatting away and there was no Malaysian style English translation for me to do for the guys. Our driver to the hot springs was pointing it all sorts of things. We passed a few farms and he said they grew cabbage and cows. We also passed a crumbling brick structure that he said was the last defense against the Japanese in WWII and then became the starting point for the death marches there. He was chatty and we talked about the differences between Kansas, Singapore, and why he liked his hometown of KK so much better, be said everyone just relaxes and has a good time. If you don't have a job, its okay, because you are having a good time living.
The spring was built right at foot of a hill in the jungle. It had numerous hostel style rooms and an outdoor restaurant next to a rushing mountain stream. There were rafflesia gardens, orchid and botanical gardens, waterfall trails, and the actual hot spring portion. Rafflesia are the largest flower in the world. Google them! They smell (apparently) like dead people. They were discovered on an expedition in the late 1700's, however the Dutchman's ship was attacked and his artifacts were ruined when he returned to Europe. He did had drawing to prove he had indeed seen the flower. However, in 1818 when Raffles, the guy who founded Singapore, came around, he "discovered" the flower as well and got to name it, naming it after himself. Hiking was the last thing we wanted to do as the soreness was starting to set in, so we grabbed out towels and crossed a swinging rope bridge over the stream to the hot springs area.
This was not a western style place. Instead, it was more of a bath house and pool recreational area. There were two large rock pools (cement pools with rocks around them) filled with cold stream water for the children to play in. The majority o the baths were open baths. One stall held four bathtubs that fit two adults each and stood about 4'5'' tall. They had spickets To fill them from the cold stream water to the hot spring water. They had a couple of pools steaming with the sulfuric hot springs water, but they reached over 60 degrees C and were roped off. They best place to go were the indoor private baths, which were luxurious looking bathtubs in closed off rooms. As the majority of the people using he baths were locals (Muslims) I assume these were mainly for the woman to bath in. I sat in a small already filled tub for a little while the boys gave up and went to shower. We had told them we wanted dinner at 7 since hey asked, so a few hours later we headed down to the very nice outdoor restaurant. They served set meals and we had chicken, rice, squid,eggplant; and these vegetables that I keep forgetting what they are called. Appetizers were winter melon soup with chicken broth, very tasty!
When we had dinner there were tons of bats flying through the opened air restaurant doing circles. This was good because they were getting rid of he bugs who wanted us and our food but it's very distracting to try and eat then here's hungry bats a foot over your head haha The showers were hot and the dorm beds comfy, so we slept afterwards.
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