Sculpting vegetables into flower shapes is all well and good, but it was time for action once again. I hadn’t been in the mountains for a while so climbing Borneo’s Mount Kinabalu seemed like a splendid idea. With the summit at 4,095m I would reach a similar height to Annapurna Base Camp back in Nepal, only this time I would get there in less than 24hrs. It seemed like a challenge, so greatest of mates Rich kindly flew out to form our 2 man assault party. My pre-climb training had consisted mainly of not getting too battered drinking with the New Zealand military, whilst Rich had come straight from his desk in London. My nerves were eased a little in the airport as during a lengthy delay, I got chatting and whiled away the time playing the “High 5” game and the “Running round in Circles” game until my new friends started crying, and then fell asleep. Nonetheless I felt confident and ready. I arrived in Kota Kinabalu, one of wild and untamed Borneo’s bustling port settlements and instantly thought
“Hmmm, Coventry”
It began to rain ominously and, now wary of unfortunate pre-adventure injuries, I shuffled carefully over the slippery pavements, determined not to fall over and do myself a mischief again the night before a climb. I was so concentrated on these efforts in fact, that I failed to notice the large metal post sticking out of the pavement, until it made its way through my shin… Another painful and ill timed injury then, but my spirits were lifted by an emotional embrace and reunion with Rich, and our immediate confidence that training didn’t matter in the slightest. We completed preparations by staying up until 3am drinking beer and watching the rugby.
An early morning start for our assault on Mt Kinabalu and we soon began to appreciate our lack of planning. The Japanese had come equipped with full scale Alpine climbing apparatus, whilst the French had brought lighter loads and a steely determination. Team Great Britain on the other hand, expecting rain, had arrived in swimming shorts and with only 1 torch and 1 big stick. For all their technical superiority though, our rivals had carelessly forgotten that most essential of items that no sane mountaineer would ever leave home without – multi-coloured safety hats. Seeing this oversight, our confidence was buoyed further, and so it began. The French set off at pace, rather rudely leaving us behind at every opportunity, whilst the Japanese tactics were seemingly to scatter themselves as far across the mountain as possible, in the hope that one or two might survive and make the summit. Team Great Britain strolled on in no particular hurry.
As night fell, nerves were stretched and preparations for the early morning summit bid were finalized. We set off at 2:30am, a trail of torchlights snaking their way through the darkness towards the heavens. Ever the engineer, Rich had solved our 1 torch problem by fixing a small Mag-Lite to his glasses with an elastic band. It worked perfectly, for the first 10 yards and then failed totally. I shone my light ahead of him as we fell further behind, only to fortuitously acquire a precious second torch from a bystander in the gloom. The race was back on. We scrambled through pitch darkness, hauling ourselves up ropes and over the bare rock with the air getting thinner at each step. Moral was low, the French had left us for dead, and the Japanese were everywhere. Damn those unsporting Frenchies. We trudged on, determined to make the summit in time for sunrise if nothing else. Hours went by and still we trudged, as the cold and the dark began to bite. Then, an astonishing twist as, unbeknownst to us, the French had faltered dramatically and catastrophically somewhere just short of the summit. This was tremendously good fortune and without even realizing it, we’d passed them in the darkness and, pushing on past the bodies of the fallen Japanese, the summit was ours!
With obligatory pats on backs we sat and watched the sunrise over Borneo as the clouds gathered far below. Team Great Britain had done it. We basked in the early morning sun and beamed with satisfaction at a job well done. 20 minutes later, the ailing French dragged themselves up behind us, their demoralized expressions of defeat proving that Britannia did indeed, rule!
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