Thursday, June 22, 2017

BeyondTheOffice: Mt. Kinabalu, You May Have Won the Battle, But If I Were Fitter, I Could Maybe Win the War


Mount Kinabalu

At 2am this morning the sky was clear, the stars were out and it seemed almost ashame to let a mountain with a crying problem defeat me.

So, with the help of a dry pair of pants (courtesy of our guide) and borrowed plastic bags to cover my socks in an attempt to keep my feet dry, I joined our group and trekked toward the summit.

We hiked in the dark for three hours, the ultimate sneak attack, somehow hoping that the mountain didn’t notice 105 headlamps pointed her way, or a 210 feet clamering about on what I can only assume was her chest cavity.

Miraculously, after pouring her heart out yesterday, she was feeling in a generous mood and rewarded our climb with ridiculously gorgeous views – she let every one of us trample on her rocks, pull on the ropes whose lines were drilled into her, and then scramble up her head to take pictures.

Incidentally, this was not a quick invasion – half way through the ropes bit, I thought my arms would give out, and by the time we got to the peak, we all needed to stop every five rocks. The invasion was more the “let’s plod along and see how we go” variety.

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