Highest mountain in Southeast Asia, Mount Kinabalu rewards trekkers with spectacular views and region’s highest loos
- Two-day trek takes hikers up through the lush jungles of Sabah in Borneo to the volcanic rock expanses of 4,095-metre peak’s upper slopes
- Climbers can admire the beauty of the predawn skies over the summit, then take an adrenaline-sapping circuit of the peak before descending well-equipped trail
“Grab the rope,” commands my guide, as I take a deep breath and pull on my gloves after adjusting my head torch. It is not every day you are asked to scramble up what looks like a 45-degree rock cliff at 4am. And we have not even reached the via ferrata, an assisted climbing route on the steepest part of our climb.
We are ascending Mount Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, the highest mountain in the country, and the highest in Southeast Asia outside the Himalayan range.
There are two legends relating to its name. One says it comes from Aki Nabalu in the indigenous Kadazan-Dusun culture, whose people believe the mountain is where the spirits of their ancestors go after death.
The other is the story of a Chinese prince who defeated a dragon atop the mountain and married a local woman, but eventually returned to his parents in China in the 15th century. His wife waited for him on the peak and turned to stone – now St John’s Peak – earning the name Cina Balu, Chinese widow.
Mount Kinabalu rises to 4,095 metres (13,435 feet) above sea level and the summit trail is well furnished with facilities such as bathrooms and resting pavilions along the way. Most of the trail goes through lush Borneo jungle, with the last 2.5km (1.5 miles) a batholith of granite diorite, an igneous intrusion of cooled magma from a volcanic eruption that formed 10 million years ago.
