Shadow of the Mountain, part deux

I was fairly alert when I woke up to John and Candis discussing what to do about our wet clothes. After 7 hours of hiking through the rain the day before, all of our stuff was soaked, and the higher we climbed, the colder it got. I was feeling a little bit better than the day before, when I could only get down a few bites of food without feeling nauseous and faint--not a good condition for hiking. But after a trip to the bathroom (which included a lot of pacing in the hall waiting for a spot), I came back curiously wanting to go up the mountain. When I went to bed that night, I had just about given up on the summit and was looking forward to sleeping in and meeting John and Candis at the warm breakfast after their climb. Taken by this strange new urge, I put on my wet t-shirt, shorts, socks, and shoes, shoved a granola bar down and walked out the door at 1:30 am. I left an hour earlier than everyone else to compensate for my tortoise-wins-the-race (or at least finishes) speed.



The moon shone bright above the clouds as I stumbled to the trail, alone in the night with my headlamp and a bag of peanuts. I have no idea what I was thinking. I felt better than the day before, but I was lacking the one thing, food, that finally did make me feel better. So I worked my way up through the last bits of forest, stopping whenever I got dizzy to eat exactly four peanuts and take a sip of water.

Two hours later, having been passed up a few times, Candis and John caught me at the first set of ropes that cover the last stage of this mountain. See, when it gets to steep to just hike up the granite, you have to pull yourself up with the ropes. They gave me some crucial cashews and kept bouncing up the mountain like they do (note to self: attempting to climb mountain with the most fit people you know may result in not keeping up).

So fast forward three hours. It's now 6:30 in the morning and our very very patient guide Rosalia has caught up to me and is creeping behind me slowly up the steep slope just before the last 100m vertical climb to the peak. As we were about to pass the 8km mark (out of 9), I see the fuzzball on John's skimask coming down the mountain towards me. Completely surprised that I'm still going, they give me the rest of the water and wish me luck with the rest of the way. And what stands before me?

The Agrocrag. The peak of Kinabalu sits atop a tall, skinny pile of boulders. Cheered on by other climbers--fast friends in the struggle uphill--I finally, after 13 hours of uphill misery, made it! Freezing and faint, I hugged the sign at the top and sounded my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world. It was awesome!



Thanks for reading, that was too long.

Peace and thank God!