Mount Kinabalu - Laban Rata ( altitude 3272 metres)

Thursday 16th July 2009
Day 19

I'm writing this from Laban Rata hut after a day's walking up the summit trail of Mount Kinabalu.

The climb was pretty taxing with a continuous steep gradient up rocks and steps. It was a beautiful climb in clear sunshine through tropical rainforest into more baron bits of mountain and back into dense forest but reaching the shelter was a huge relief as oxygen levels were getting increasngly low and the old legs were starting to feel the strain.

Our guide is a friendly bloke called Fred. At the bottom of the mountain were the fastest times for reaching the summit and returning. A Spanish bloke had the fastest clocking 2 hours and 30 minutes but Fred informed us that guides couldn't enter this and most had beaten this time. Fred himself had done it in 2 hours 20 minutes and wasn't the quickest.

As well as meeting heaps of interesting people up the climb who'd stop and have a chin wag there were also workers carrying huge supplies up the mountain overtaking you. Some had short shorts on so you could check out their legs. Roberto Carlos' had nothing on these bad boys!