Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

September 6-7, 2023

2642m

Sabah, Malaysia

Gunung Trusmadi is considered the 2nd highest peak in both Borneo and Malaysia but that’s only if one discounts all the sub-peaks on Kinabalu. Some of those peaks on Kinabalu do boast over 100 m prominence so in my opinion those should be listed and counted. Nonetheless Gn. Trusmadi is the second highest “ultra-prominent peak” in Malaysia without controversy. The same company that Adam and I used to climb Kinabalu with (Amazing Borneo Tours) also offers the climbing packages for Trusmadi. There are three established routes and all of the packages are significantly overpriced. The cheapest, the 2D1N option via Apin-Apin route costs over 500 USD per person. I eventually completed this route in just over 5 hours round trip, though the logistics of getting to the trail-head was by no mean straightforward. I could sort of understand the costs after finishing this trip and I do also understand that Malaysia is more expensive than Indonesia but still, I think the reasonably price should be 200 USD per person. The overprice is largely due to the legal requirement of hiring a guide combined with the monopolized guiding services.

I had briefly studied this objective a few months ago when I booked our Kinabalu’s package and the decision was made to skip it, mostly because of the costs. However, as the days became closer our primary objectives in Japan had to be cancelled due to a series of typhoons. I threw Trusmadi back into the discussion and this time we decided to suck in the cost, as there was no better option. Paying 500 USD wouldn’t be a problem for any of us anyway, and we much rather preferred an “ultra” over any other “dumpster-dives” on this island of Borneo. The first crux was always the paper work as climbers are supposed to book the package over a month in advance according to the company’s website, but I had the manager’s WhatsApp and she was willing to try getting us a last-minute permit. It did not help that we pulled the trigger on a Saturday (weekend). I had to press her a few times and eventually got the permits sorted out by Sunday afternoon. The main problem is that for Trusmadi this company is technically just a “middle person”, that she must contact the local agency and people to make sure we could have a guide and the quota of maximum 20 climbers per day hadn’t been reached. Thankfully we got everything sorted out the day before departing for Kinabalu.

The package is listed as “2 days and 1 night” but the ascent itself is just a day-trip. The first day would be used entirely for driving, which was much more complicated than I thought. There were three stages of transportation. The company’s van showed up at 9 am and dropped us off two hours later at Tambunan where we did our first stage of registration. After a quick lunch break we were then loaded to a pick-up truck and transported to Apin-Apin where we did the second stage of registration and met our guide and the 4WD driver/cook. The people there gave us our second lunch (Mie Goreing) which we appreciated as well. It started to pour heavily while we were waiting for the driver to fix the air conditioning of the vehicle. The 4WD vehicle looked beefy, but was quite sketchy as things seemed to break apart all the time. The final stage of the driving was the 3-hour journey up the 50+ km of rough roads to the “starting point”, or the trail-head on the south side of the mountain. It’s amazing that there exists such a road in the middle of the jungle. The road is sustainedly rough and the going was extremely slow at times. We were briefly stuck in the mud a few times but the driver freed the vehicle without us having to go out and walk. There’s another gate at the start of the rough road with another mandatory registration, so good luck if you want to sneak in and do this peak illegally. After Kinabalu and Trusmadi I had completely given up on the idea of trespassing in Malaysia. They had made it extremely difficult if not impossible. The basecamp was without any form of luxury and specifically there’s only 1 bed for the 4 of us. Adam took the bed, the driver and the guide opted to sleep on the ground, whereas I decided to sleep in the truck as I’m overall more used to that style. The sleeping bag that they gave us was the cheep shit that I would normally throw in the garbage bin within minutes, so it was a mistake that we didn’t bring our own sleeping gears. I very much only use the high-end gears these days. The food and the service quality was on the other hand, excellent.

The journey to and the ascent of Gn. Trusmadi is actually the most jungle-ish experience that I have had in this entire trip. The weather was horrible for most of the time, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. It poured cats and dogs again for a few hours in the evening. Adam and I had discussed with the guide that we were much faster than the averaged so we wouldn’t want to start hiking until 3:30 am. The normal starting time would be midnight or 1 am. The elevation gain from the trail-head to the summit was only 1200 m and I confirmed with the guide that we wouldn’t be bushwhacking. The trail is listed “difficult” but how difficult could it be. There’s no way for this trail to be worse than Liman or Marapi, so I budged at most 3 hours to the summit, which should position us there for the sunrise. I did not get much sleep at all in the vehicle but I’m fine with that. To sleep before a climb is optional for me, as I’m very used to pulling “all-nighters” by living in and doing trips in BC and Washington. By the time 3:30 am rolled in Adam decided to pull the plug as he wasn’t in the mood to deal with zillions of leeches in the dark, so it was only me and the guide heading up. I had already played with a shit ton load of leeches on Gn. Sago which was oddly another peak that Adam had skipped, so I should be experienced enough to deal with them. I opted to wear the leech socks from the beginning. Within the first hour I had picked up at least 15 leeches on the shoes and the socks, but none of them was able to make a bite.

From 2000 m elevation onward there was no more leech, but the trail had become progressively more difficult. It was the technical scrambling on tree roots that made it difficult, but the trail is very narrow with a ton of obstacles that demand 100% concentration at all time. The moment I let my guard down I would trip and fall, or hit my head on a branch. The most notable crux was at 2300 m where three ladders joined together to penetrate an otherwise impossible bluff. The first two ladders are nearly vertical and the third one is slanted. The exposure was real, and the first two ladders wobbled upon stepping on. I was sort of terrified as it reminded me the ladder crossings on Mt. Everest, except that on Trusmadi I was not attached to a fixed rope so if I fell I would go a long ways down. The zone above this crux looked simple on the maps due to the gentler grade, but was actually quite involved. Again this was because of the degrading quality of this trail. I had to constantly duck or even crawl under some branches, and the vegetation on both sides of the trail started to close in. Thank to the rain in the previous evening we were thoroughly soaked. There were a lot of pitcher plants and those cups were all loaded with water. I accidently flipped several cups and further soaked myself. A while later we scrambled up the series of class 3 roots steps to the false (west) summit where a lookout tower was located. The clouds were obscuring any potential sunrise view, so we continued to the true (east) summit and took our break there. Our ascent time was 2 hours 45 minutes. The weather was overcast, but we did get some views.

After spending 15 minutes on the summit I concluded that the weather would not improve, so we dashed back to the lookout tower. The traverse between the two involved a lot of mud but I was patient enough to not wet my shoes. The clouds had engulfed in that we were now in a white-out so there’s no point in climbing the ladder up to that lookout tower. Instead, I opted to make the entire descent in a single shot without eating or drinking anything. I had not eaten anything yet but that’s because they served me an excellent breakfast at 3 am, which eventually kept me going for over 5 hours. There’s not much worth documenting about the descent other than perseverance. The terrain was extremely slick but not difficult, so the key was to stay concentrated. At this stage of the trip I was already sick of the jungle trails so it was especially not that easy to stay focused to the immediate ground ahead. Nonetheless I made the descent sans any notable mistake, and finished the round trip in just over 5 hours. The guide was extremely fast especially on the difficult sections, that I think he could easily double by pace if he wanted. I had been very impressed by the guides in Malaysia. These are surely some of the strongest people I’ve hiked with. They served us another excellent meal before packing up for the 3-hour drive out of this rough place. It started to rain again after about 2 hours on the road, and the rain turned into downpouring shortly after. The downpour lasted all the way back to Kota Kinabalu.