Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

September 3, 2023

201m

Sabah, Malaysia

“UMS Peak” is the highest point in Universiti Malaysia Sabah and boasts over 100 m prominence. This is a “dumpster dive” by any measure and the only reason I did it was because I had nothing else to do. This was supposed to be a rest day but I didn’t feel the need to rest. Earlier in the day I had already bagged the high point of Gaya Island. It was now 1:30 pm and Adam decided to join me for this secondary objective of the day. Eric Gilbertson had put it up on peakbagger.com and a trail is labelled on the Gaia map so all we needed was to take a taxi to the start of the trail. To our surprise the university charged us an entrance fee (10 MYR per pax). People had warned me that Malaysia is known for its complicated administration and red tape and they sure weren’t kidding.

The last few kilometers of the drive was a bit complicated and not obvious, but I was able to direct the driver using the Gaia map. The driver dropped us at the start of the trail and the “ascent” was rather no-brainer. All we needed was to follow this trail to the summit. The crux was the heat. It was about 35 degrees C with humidity that even 100 m gain felt like a lot. We had to move at a snail’s pace to prevent overheating. There’s a seismo structure about halfway up the trail but it’s fenced off. To our surprise there’s actually a little bit of views from the summit.

We did no lingering and immediately descended. I was quite sure that the Grab drivers would not want to pick us up from the trail-head, so we kept walking until about 500 m from the university’s entrance gate. I was thinking to walk all the way out, but Adam tried his Grab app and found a driver, so we sat and waited. The driver came in about 10 minutes and another 10 minutes later we were back to the hotel. This was not as short of a day as I was hoping for, but I was happy to have bagged two peaks. Not many people end up having multiple “green dots” in Borneo.