And let me tell you, the disabled participants were amazing! The group included participants that were blind, deaf, physically and mentally impaired by spastic disorders such as Cerebral Palsy, and Down's Syndrome. Many Rotarians and non-Rotarians came together to raise over $95,000 USD with a goal of $160,000 USD which will likely be reached as publicity of the successful climb spreads. The money will be donated to 6 different organizations including the Spastic Children's Association, Malaysia Association for the Blind, Music Dream Center for Autistic Children, etc. There are too many fantastic details of the climb to share here, so I'll try a quick rundown of the logistics and successes.
The trail head for Mt. Kinabalu is a and elevation of 6,122 ft. Most climbers take a 2 day, 1 night hike to complete the trek, and it can be done up and down in one day if you are super crazy fit. But for our climb, we took a 3 day, 2 night climb to assure that everyone had the best chance of making it to the top. On day one we hiked up to approximately 11,000 ft. and spent the night at a series of "rest houses." Better accommodations than I would expect as everything is brought up by porters to accommodate up to 140 people. All the food served at the meals, linens, propane, etc. There was electricity, running water, flush toilets, but no hot water this time (periodically they have had hot water available at these huts). The temperature here felt equivalent to summer time temperatures in Alaska, haha, quite comfortable for me, but the poor Malaysians were freezing!
The 2nd morning, a small group of us woke up early and started hiking at 2:30 am to try and reach the summit by sunrise. Scaling the granite faces of the mountain in the dark with the guide of a white rope to hold on to, we slogged on as the temperatures dropped and the moon lit our way. Eventually I turned my headlamp off and was able to hike by the light of the full moon across the exposed granite. I reached the summit at 5:30am and was able to spend about 45 minutes enjoying the sunrise and refreshing mountain air at 13,345 ft. I had plenty of layers but a few of my fingers did go numb from taking off my gloves to snap photos, a nice familiar feeling!
The OKUs and the rest of the climbers took a later start around 8am and almost everyone successfully reached the summit. All of the group reached the huts at 11,000 ft. (a success in itself) and a few climbers and 3 OKUs, who were suffering from the effects of altitude, attempted the summit but couldn't quite make it. I have to admit that I under estimated the OKUs; the hike and elevation gain (7,223 ft over 5.6 miles) was a challenge for me, so I can't even imagine the perseverance for them. But thankfully Rotary put a lot of effort into providing abundant training for them over 5 months leading up to the climb, taking them out hiking practically every weekend.
Making it to the top is only half the journey though. I knew coming back down would be a challenge as the trail consists large sections of "stairs", probably adding up to hundreds of steps along the way. These "stairs" consisted of boards and rebar placed into the mud and rock to keep the trail from eroding away from heavy use and rain. They were very uneven from small steps to large gaps over a foot high so every persons knees and leg muscles were suffering by the end, but it was well worth the journey. The idea of getting a massage is nice, but when I think about anyone even touching my calves today (even 2 days after the descent), I wince.
I have way too many photos to post here, so I attempted to throw a few of them into a quick slide show. It greatly diminishes the quality of the photos, but at least you get an idea. For best viewing, do NOT watch on full screen, but do turn on the volume to your speakers for some good mountain music. This is my first attempt at loading a video format to the blog, so sorry about the poor quality, I'll try for better quality next time.
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