News
Charity Climb Report
8th April 2011:
- Departing from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu International Airport at 0850hrs Silk Air flight.MI0392 and arrival at 1120hrs
- Travelling by bus heading to Sutera harbour resort for lunch and to separate our luggage into two parts. 1st to be brought on Mt Kinabalu and 2nd to be left in the hotel.
- Bus leaving at 2pm sharp and it takes about 2hrs to reach Kinabalu Park, the starting point of the climb. Kinabalu Park is already 1866.4m above sea level. Thus the temperature is pretty cold & then back to the hotel to check in, dinner & safety briefing.
9th April 2011:
- Breakfast as planned at 0700hrs.
- 0800hrs meet at registration area, coaches start transferring climbers to starting point the Timpohon Gate.
- Upon arrival in Timpohon Gate we meet our mountain guide and we started the challenge at 0930hrs sharp.
- We are in the Class A team which means we are conquering Mt Kinabalu without the aid of Porter. That results in carrying our 10kg rucksack all the way up!
- We are making our way to Laban Rata hut (3314.3m) which is a 6km journey. Luck wasn’t with us. It rains all the way & we get soaked!
- The 6km hike took us 5.5hrs. Trail was clearly defined & on the way up we were greeted and motivated by descending hikers which really keeps us going. Upon reaching Laban Rata my right groin is hurting, I have difficulty lifting my right leg and both legs are close to cramping.
- This is the first time in life where we climbed/walked for so long, carried such a heavy bag and its raining. We considered this a real breakthrough but we were glad when we reached Laban Rata eventually.
- All of us were given a room to rest and wash up, which is exactly what we really wanted to do, to remove all the wet clothes and a wash up.
- Unfortunately heated water wasn’t provided in our hostel and a wash up with the coldest water I ever had was really challenging. My head actually felt numb when I tried to wash my hair ;-)
- Dinner at 1730hrs, and we were told that our team had to depart for summit at 0300hrs.
- I still have difficulty lifting my right leg, its hurting, Leong was doing fine. Thus I was quite worried, taking pain killers and applying an analgesic cream before sleep.
10th April 2011:
- At 0300hrs we started our climb to the summit, exhausted bodies, extreme darkness, freezing temperature, difficult terrain and my limping leg was telling us to give up all the time. We know the summit is 2.6km away. After climbing for 2hrs + we still can’t see the summit… that’s really demotivating. Breathing is getting harder and harder. As our breath will not be able to catch up, all we did was keep telling ourselves that we can do it and focus in our breathing rhythm.
- Faith has brought us to the summit finally at 0630hrs. It took us 3.5hrs, we just simply can’t believe it that we finally succeded J the feeling was just great… I lost words at the mesmerizing view.
- Due to time constraints we start descent after a few photos. Descending to Laban Rata, packed all our stuff and down to Timpohon Gate (our starting point at Kinabalu Park) the whole descent took around 5.5hrs. Although the weather is good, that doesn’t stop the pain in our leg muscles and toes especially. Leong had minor bruises and an ankle sprain from a slip.
- We made it to the Timpohon Gate at 1pm. Took our lunch while waiting for bus to shuttle us to Sutera Harbour resort where we will stay for a night and the dinner & prize giving ceremony.
- Rest assured we were totally exhausted for the dinner. It was a great time to meet existing business partners and expanding our network. However all of us were too exhausted, we head to bed right after dinner.
11th April 2011:
- We check out and head to airport. Departing Kota Kinabalu at 1325hrs.
