Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia

Four thousand and ninety-five meters into the sky, Mount Kinabalu is southeast Asia's highest mountain - and we made it to the top! For those Americans not grasping the meter-speak, that would be 13,445 feet. Not such an easy challenge.

before the climb

Our journey to the top started at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. The day before we had recruited a group of six other hikers to join us and our two guides. Our companions for the trek would be Christian and Marc, Spain, Fred and Amelia, Sweden/Australia, and Trevor and Jane, England. We hiked four and half hours, 6 km to the Laban Rata Resthouse, about 3,000 meters up on the mountain. While most of the way we seemed to be walking in a cloudy mist, early in the afternoon we suddenly realized we had climbed above the clouds... a pretty spectactular view of blue sky above white clouds and sunshine beaming down on us. Once arriving at the resthouse it was sleeping, feeding and sleeping time.

Our wake up call was 2 a.m. Sunday morning. From there we had a quick breakfast and got out on the trail at 3 a.m. Another two and a half hours in the dark up to the peak, we reached the summit just in time for sunrise at 5:45 a.m. It was absolutely freezing at the peak so we only stayed on top long enough to snap a few pictures and take in the rainbow of colors rising above and inbetween the clouds. Coming down the mountain was equally as tough. Now that it was light out we could see the sheer, flat rocks we had been scaling with nothing but a rope - just a little dangerous ;-). Looks like those rock climbing lessons in '09 paid off! After arriving back at Laban Rata for our second breakfast, we forced ourselves to begin the second journey of the day. Four hours down the mountain, we made it. After barely any sleep and 13 hours of hiking we were pretty exhausted.

the crew and our guide at Timphon Gate, the beginning of the trail

this is what the entire first day looked like

above the clouds

Laban Rata Resthouse, unfortunately we had to stay at Waras Hut, a five minute walk down the mountain

all smiles in the sunshine after the grueling first day

all geared up at 3 a.m. for the summit

it was a bit hard to catch the sunrise on camera...

despite our numb fingers we made a few attempts to capture the colors...

and then one attempt to get a group shot... yes, that's me in between Amy and Jackie... brrrrr

down the mountain... getting pretty tired

finally the face masks can come off

breakfast view at Laban Rata

Back to Kota Kinabalu (about a two hour ride from the base lodge) where we went to sleep around 8 p.m. - but only to wake up at 3:30 a.m. for our next flight. (We are keeping quite an aggresive travel schedule) After 2 plane rides, a 4 hr taxi and a 1.5 hr ferry we have reached Ko Samui, Thailand. After the hike we are all wobbling around and in desperate need of thai massage and beach time. Great planning on our part, it's absoultely gorgeous here and we are thrilled to be spending our final week in southern Thailand.

the sunrise view flying out of Kota Kinabalu