Rain Rain, All the Way
It was 6:45 a.m. when I reached Low’s Peak. It had started raining as I climbed over the last few craggy rocks. Vani had stopped 100 meters below, after having given up the idea of climbing to the summit, out of exhaustion. Rain was now coming down in torrents washing down with it my hopes of catching a glimpse of the famous sunrise. The rain and the clouds all around created an atmosphere of complete blankness and loneliness at the top. The summit was claustrophobically narrow with a wooden board mounted on a post with something written in Bahasa Malaysia. In the distance I could see a very hazy outline of King George’s Peak.
At 4101 meters, Low’s Peak is the summit of Mt. Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South East Asia. It was named after a British Officer whose was the first recorded climb a few decades ago. Long before that and ever since, the locals have perhaps climbed this mountain innumerable time without much fanfare.
I crouched down to take a breather. I saw a blurred figure approaching surprisingly quickly (as compared to the time I took to climb up) a few yards below. It gradually became clearer and I could see Ebit, our guide. He asked me for Vani’s raincoat. He grabbed the orange rain coat that I passed him, and hurried back, as swift as a mountain squirrel. I realized how good one should be in these surroundings before one became a guide. Ebit had climbed to this peak more than 100 times.
I was a bit worried as Vani was almost listless the last time I saw her. And she would have been drenched in the rain by now and could be in very bad shape. I wanted to reach her as fast as I could, much hindered as I was by the rain, unfamiliar rocky terrain and the need to gingerly hold onto the rope lest I slipped in the rainwater streaming down the rocks. My raincoat was a practical failure. It was just a tent hanging onto my shoulders with a couple of buttons on my sides. It billowed in the gale and obstructed my view downwards. Added to the woes were my soaking wet gloves and shoes. Despite these hindrances, I felt I had gradually gained greater confidence in my footsteps on the rocks. I seemed to have become naturalised to the terrain after hours of climbing.
Revelation, Strained Respiration
We had started climbing to the peak from our intermediate overnight stay at the Laban Rata resthouse, about three quarters of the way to the top. We were six of us in the pack. Two hardy Englishmen, Richard and Bell, who were in Singapore on work from British Post; a Singaporean, Simon, who never stopped complaining about one thing or the other (“It is sooo cold, lah!”), an Indian couple (Vani and I) who were a little too enthusiastic about the climb for what their physiques would allow; and our guide who had a serenity that even the Buddha would envy. We were put up in a bunker-type of room with beds like railway berths, the floor creaked as you walked, but it had a window with a good view to the mountains beyond.
We had woken up before 2 a.m., even before Simon’s alarm went off. The previous day, we had arrived here in the afternoon, after 7 hours of strenuous climbing from the National Park head quarters. After we tucked into fried rice, eggs and coffee, we hoped to catch enough sleep before our next day’s climb. However, the cold, the bleakness of the place (no electricity) and the altitude that caused a slight headache, did not let us sleep well. There was a thunderstorm, though luckily it happened after we reached the rest house, and the rain water that was flowing down from the peaks generated tremendous sounds that could be heard even inside our almost air tight room.
Surprisingly, when I woke up at 2 a.m., I felt fresh, excited and did not even feel the stiffness from previous day’s climb. Vani was a little anxious about what was in store. Our morning ablutions were perfunctory. (You can’t do much in that freezing temperature.) We had tea and set out armed with torches, hand gloves, rain coats, cameras, dry fruits for nourishment, and most important of all, our guide. It was cold and breezy, but very invigorating. Pretty soon the ascent in the moonlight and feeble torchlight had warmed us up.
Presently, Richard, Bell and Simon had gone further up, away from us. Only once in a while could I hear their feeble sounds and see streaks of torchlight somewhere up in the hills. Vani was showing signs of exhaustion. The strain of the steep climb was a bit too much on her and she had slowed down considerably. Ebit as a guide has an unwritten code, I suppose. He never left her side. Climbing too slowly than is natural to him had its effect on him. I was in the middle ground here. While I did not feel very exhausted, I did feel the palpitation in my heart and blood pumping in my veins.
Anyway, I did not want to go too far away from Vani. So every once in a while, I would stop and wait until Vani caught on. I would egg her on with a “Come on, you can do it,” and such empty words, while she found it increasingly difficult to go on, and at one point the strain was too much and she broke down. What had started off as a whim and fancy to climb had in fact overwhelmed us. It had stretched our limits, both physically and mentally. I realized I had pushed her to go on to avoid the embarrassment of not completing what we had started. I thought it was futile and unnatural to do things that you are not completely capable of. I summarized, all adventures, however foolish or genuine, are started on whim but are completed, if at all, to avoid the fear of failure. In hindsight, I think this is not entirely true. However, these thoughts had cleared my mind and relaxed me. From then on I was less worried whether Vani and I will make it to the peak or not. From there on Vani did climb, although painstakingly slowly, to the 8.6 Km mark, just 100 meters short of the summit. And, I did reach the summit.
Of Borneo Eye Brights and Kinabalu Buttercups
I was on the summit for a few more minutes after Ebit left with Vani’s rain coat. I was the last one to start climbing down from the summit. The other groups had reached the summit earlier and had already started the descent. In the distance, there was a Malaysian couple ambling down with their guide. By now, the rain had stopped for a while and the sun was out, although it was not all that bright because of the clouds. Later, it would drizzle and stop, and drizzle again a few times, irritating me, and troubling me with my rain coat. It was a small bother though for the heady sight that lay before me and below.
The summit’s plateau is a vast expanse of grey, granite slopes. There are peaks with names like Donkey’s Ears and the Sisters, obviously based on their shapes. Low’s Peak is like a misnomer. It’s actually the highest peak. The geological history of Mt. Kinabalu goes some 9 millions years ago, when the granite core was solidifying beneath the earth’s crust. This granite massif was forced upwards through the crust and is now exposed as a result of the removal, by erosion, of thousands of overlaying sand and mudstane rocks. During the ice age, the glaciers flowed down the rocks smoothing out the plateau. At some places the rocks were quite smooth, and I slipped twice, because of the flowing rain water, and fell on my back. Luckily, I did not slide down too far.
I was now alone as I climbed down, the Malaysian couple being nowhere in sight. There was an eerie silence except for the queer dull sound that the wind made over the rocks and the rustle of my rain coat. On our way to the National Park from the airport, the driver was telling us that the locals sacrifice 3 white chickens every year at the top of the mountain to appease the deity, failing which, the locals believed the deity will gobble up a passing climber. We all laughed at it, but now, all alone in this eerie silence, it was not a joke anymore.
To avoid such thoughts, I started plucking flowers from the shrubs growing in the crevices, and putting them in my pocket. I later found them all crushed and soggy. The flowers have such exotic names as Borneo Eye Bright, Kinabalu Buttercup, Silver Potentialla and Mountain Trachymere. Often mountain ground squirrels and mountain rats would scurry past me, and I wished I could run down as fast.
After climbing down for an hour, I got my hands sore from holding on to the ropes. I came upto a sign that read, “Danger. Please hold on to the ropes. Please do not run down.” In the darkness of the early hours as we climbed up, we had not seen this board and we were oblivious of the danger. Now, I could see the smoothness of the big boulder, the sheer drop to the bottom, and the green expanse of the plains that were so far below. And on the right, there was a most enchanting rainbow that made a large colourful arc from the base of the mountain to the peak. Now, I was in a dilemma. I had this rare rainbow I wanted to capture on film, and in front of me there was this daunting task of climbing down this difficult piece of rock. I succumbed to my photo fondness and took a few pictures. I had yet to reach Vani. And suddenly it hit me that Vani would have climbed down already, and how in the hell did she manage! She later told me that she was so terrified she slid down slowly on her bums while the guide somehow managed to keep her from falling off!
As I climbed down clutching the rope ever so cautiously, I thought it was not as difficult as it appeared from the top. At the bottom of the rock, over the bend I saw Ebit and then behind him, Vani who looked weathered to quite a degree. Now, I felt much better. From then on for another hour or so, there were many rocks to be climbed over before we hit a series of wooden steps which were considerably easier. By the time we reached Laban Rata, it was 10:15 a.m. We had taken about 3 hours to climb down. Richard and Bell had already started off on their descent to the National Park head quarters which was 6.5 Kms from here. We decided to pack up immediately, have our breakfast and leave soon after to the head quarters with Simon. We thought the most difficult part was past us. Climbing down from now on should be less strenuous, we imagined. How wrong we were!
~*~
Eclectic Musings by Ranga Sitaram 