First Big Wall Ascent of Victoria Peak East Face - Mt Kinabalu, Borneo, Sabah
By Pep Soldevila (Spainish Expedition 98)
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
I travelled to Malaysia in 1998 for the first time, with three friends. The reason for this trip was to try to climb an impressive wall that we had seen by chance on a nature tv program about Borneo. Once we were ther, we quickly discovered where the wall was located, but we were dissapointed about the very complicated and dangerous access to the base, and the fact that we needed much more climbing gear than we had brought with us. So, we looked for an alternative, and we found one. The east face of Victoria Peak, located very close to the Kinabalu summit, was perfect for us. This face is about 350-400 meters high, and the base is relatively easy to reach. We put our base camp in the Gurka Hut, a very small but nice hut placed about forty minutes from the base of the wall. We were there about two weeks, and we opened two new routes on this face, they are called "Figueres 98" and "L'Ullal d'en Godzilla." the first one is mostly aid climbing, the second is mostly free climbing, and reaches directly the highest point of this face. I would like to come again sometime to climb "l'ullal d'en Godzilla", because I think it is a very nice route. In both climbs, the belays are equiped with good bolts. In "Figueres 98", lots of climbing gear are required, including pitons. To climb "L'ullal d'en Godzilla" you only need cams and nuts. Threre is one aid pitch, but is completely equiped with bolts, you only need one or two hooks. I think that the wall was still virgin, before we opened these routes.
I came back to Borneo year after, with three friends to try the giant wall that is located in the base of "low's gully". We spent ten days approaching the mountain and preparing the access to the route, that was really complicated. The route starts at the very bottom of the gully, so the access gets very dangerous when it rains, because the gully quickly becomes a waterfall.The weather was really bad, bacause it rained hard most of the days, during the afternoon and night time. We climbed this route traditional style, fixing ropes and climbing two of us at a time, and changing climbers two or three days later. We used a portaledge that we carried up the wall. The first 2/3 of the route is overhanging, so there is mostly aid climbing. The last 1/3 is free climb. In the last pitch we joined the normal route of this peak (it is called the donkey's ears), it is an easy pitch of grade 5.
Curiously, the last days that we were there, a team of British people arrived, with the same objective. At first, they were very dissapointed that we were already high on the wall, and they realized they were not going to be the first to climb the wall, it was a real surprise for them. At the end, they climbed a new route that begins with the first five pitches of our route. When we left the mountain, they were high on their route, I think they finished it a few days later.
The route that we opened is called " l'Alquimista", in honour of Pablo Coello's book. It is about 850meters high, and mostly aid climbing. I think to repeat that route it is necessary only two or three days, beacuse we left a lot of gear (pitons and bolts)in the wall, but it is important to take time to prepare the access to the base with fixed ropes, to prepare the retreat in case of bad wather. If not, it could be very dangerous.