practically everest!

...well half the height, but felt like it! nearly killed me, in such agony now- everything hurts!

mt kinabalu's the highest peak in se asia, at 4095m, so quite a lot higher up than i've climbed before! so it was a 2 day hike. the first day was just relentless steps- so knackering, then we got to our little hut for the night where you had to stay to acclimatise yourself to the altitude. was pretty much up in the clouds so we couldn't really see where we were until later on in the day when the clouds started clearing. then we could see down below, with patches of the city between the clouds far beneath us, and up above us- a scary sight- the peaks of the mountain. they looked fearsome from the ground but up close it looked a little bit daunting! anyway , we got an early night, but not that much sleep as its freezing up there, and we had no heating. luckily, there were a few beds free in our dorm, so we nicked all the blankets and piled them up!

next morning was a 3am start. pretty early, but it was get to the summit for sunrise. we cooked up some supernoodles (our staple diet for the few days we were there as everything was so expensive!) and baked beans- interesting breakfast, but it was warm, then we were off again. this was pretty tough as well. we actually got caught in a bit of a traffic jam, so a lot of the first part was pretty slow. tis was good actually, didnt get too knackered too early...then it was onto climbing by the ropes, and up over the granite slopes. daylight was starting to come and it was pretty amazing to see the outline of the peaks around you coming into shape. it was such hard work but we made it there. and it was so stunning. took my breath away a little bit, i have to say (though could've been the lack of oxygen in the air!). after all that we didnt spend that long up there- it was so cold!!!! but got a few pretty nice photos, so i 'll post them up. we were lucky to have clear weather- ofetn its all just clouds up there, and at least by 10 am it just completely disappears every day!

as we were going down we heard a shout, and these guys who had been behind us started running off towards the edge. someone had fallen and i thought for sure they would be dead, they;d just disappeared completely, and the surface just went off to a sheer drop there. the guides went running off and a few minutes later carried a guy up. he was ok, but lots of blood. so scary. we got down to where we'd stayed overnight, and a short while later they carried him in on a stretcher, with a collar on and a silver blanket. poor guy, his face was covered in blood and they thought he'd broken his leg. he looked such a mess, but hope it might have been better than it looked. they were going to get him down by helicopter, but then the clouds came in and he ended up getting stretchered down. not much fun for him or the guides i'd think...

so anyway, from the huts we started off down. and we seriously underestimated the pain of this...oh dear... it was absolute torutre. fo rabout the last 4k i didn tthink i could go on. my knees were in such pain, and i could hardly bend my legs...it was awful!!! i won;t go on about it too much, but i didnt enjoy it one bit!!

finally (after several times thinking there couldnt possibly be any more steps) we made it back to the park headquarters, and back to where we were staying. absolute joy!!!!

actually, it was a lovely place right at the bottom of the mountain with a big balcony looking out over the trees. anyway, didnt really care about that then- spent the rest of the day collapsed in bed thinking this was so much more fun than the expterme pain of treking up an ddown mountains!

marc was all excited cos apparently the ex-everton goalkeeper, neville southall, and alan kennedy who used to play for liverpool were staying at our place too! i wasnt that excited but i guess some people might be....