Time to climb Sabah's Trusmadi

Ever heard of Trusmadi? No? Figures. All everyone knows is Mt Kinabalu. Nobody remembers No 2.

Maybe it’s true what they say about being Number Two — nobody knows, let alone remembers you.

Everyone and his brother know Gunung Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Malaysia, and many, many people have climbed it. That’s how it is when you are Numero Uno. What about the second highest mountain in Malaysia?

What is the second highest mountain in Malaysia?

Most of the time, there’s a deafening silence because so few people have ever heard of Gunung Trusmadi in Sabah, which, at 2,642m above sea level, is a relative dwarf compared to Kinabalu.

But that’s no reason not to climb it, which was why five companions and I found ourselves in a speeding minivan on a scenic drive across the Crocker Range. This rugged range of mountains is virtually in the backyard of Kota Kinabalu, yet little visited by tourists.

To one side of the road, down a deep ravine, was a rushing river, while a slab of verdant rainforest rose vertically on the other side. Clouds of mist rose, wraith-like, from damp valleys far below to obscure the road.

From the heights of the Crocker Range, some 80km later, we descended into the flat, sunlit valley of Tambunan. There were golden fields of padi in the late afternoon light, a clear blue sky and lush surrounding hills. The air was sweet.

Tambunan could have qualified as the most idyllic postcard-village in the state. The roads were straight and well-paved, the buildings in good repair and the town itself looked scrubbed and prosperous.

We put up at a little resort a short distance from town. Our hut, basic but adequate, looked out to a disused football field beyond which was a shallow, rippling river crossed by a wire suspension bridge. The small riverside restaurant served surprisingly good food to the few customers it had. Hot food, good companions, a murmuring river nearby, peace and quiet in a remote corner of the country — what more could one ask for?

The next morning, our two 4WDs left the tarred road for an unpaved logging road a few kilometres from Tambunan town. The air was cool and fresh, with logged forest on either side of the road. At some point, the gradient became steep enough for our driver to lock the freewheels of the vehicle. Some distance later, we turned a corner and I gaped.

Up ahead was the largest butterfly I had ever seen in my life. It was a Rajah Brooke Birdwing, no less, with distinctive green triangles on black wings, but with a wingspan well over 3m wide.

For a fleeting moment, the thought of Nature striking back for all the indignities we heap upon the blemished land crossed my mind — the Attack of the Giant Butterflies. And that was before I noticed the giant Rafflesia and giant pitcher plant near the butterfly.

Alas, the butterfly was really a gate, cleverly constructed so that each of the “wings” swung out 90˚ to allow vehicles to pass. Disappointingly, the giant Rafflesia and pitcher plant were also fake — cement reproductions of the real thing. A carnivorous pitcher plant of that size would have been a sensation for horror film aficionados.

We were, in fact, at the ranger station, gateway to the Gunung Trusmadi forest reserve.

A ranger was despatched to accompany us to ensure we didn’t get up to any mischief. His name was Heli, and he was a cherubic and eternally cheerful character who spoke little and ate lots. He joined our guide, Brown, and our porter Lius.

Brown was a lean, wiry man. A padi farmer, he had climbed the mountain “countless times”. He worked in Kuala Lumpur years ago but returned to the clean air and life of a farmer in Tambunan because he felt it was a better life.

Lius (as in “Cornelius”) looked like he had walked out of a cartoon. He was pleasantly chubby, with a round face and shaven head except for a slick tuft of hair just above his forehead.

We trundled along in the 4WDs, steadily climbing a gravelly road until we ground to a halt where the road ended. In front of us rose a wall of dense unlogged forest. A small opening was the beginning of the trail. A marker indicated that the summit was 5km away.

We stepped into another world where the light was dim with trees rising silently around us. There was a thick carpet of fallen leaves and bright green moss underfoot. The moss clung to tree trunks and decorated branches, imparting to some trees the appearance of some hoary monster.

It was like walking on hallowed ground, being in this mossy forest of silence and filtered light, of greens and browns. A few hundred yards in, we emerged at a clearing with the surprising amenities of a toilet, a rest area and tap water, drawn from an enormous plastic storage tank. It was just one of two such rest areas we would come across.

Our path led us upward into cooler terrain, eventually emerging at the top of a vegetation-covered ridge. We glimpsed a sea of cloud below us, crashing noiselessly against the dense forested mountains. The ridge undulated, descending precipitously, almost vertically in places, and then rising sharply again like a sinuous dragon’s back. Up and down we went, following Brown.

In the late afternoon, we came to our campsite. We had just descended from a high point on the ridge, and onto a broad flat rock ledge. A large tarpaulin had been secured over the camp, which housed a number of metal bunk beds within. Solar panels provided enough energy to power a single light bulb.

A little to the side was the roofed, linoleum-floored kitchen, and further down the slope was the toilet. Running water was available. It was all more civilized than we had expected. The summit was 1.5km from the camp.

While dinner was being prepared, we pulled on fleece jackets against the cold. A fine mist descended. The trees around us appeared ghost-like in the evening gloom. After dinner, we curled up in sleeping bags as the temperature dropped into the low teens.

At 4am in the morning, exhaling resulted in puffs of vapour. Outside, the sky was a sheet of dark velvet penetrated by the diamantine light of distant stars. The lights of Tambunan twinkled in a valley far below. Someone turned on his iPhone music player, and Susan Boyle sang I Dreamed a Dream as I turned on my LED headlamp and stepped out into the dark forest, behind Brown.

I soon began to warm up from the hike, concentrating on the pool of light in front of me. Shadows danced at the sides, but all I had to do was to focus on that little piece of trail lighted by my headlamp. We climbed silently, the occasional grunt of exertion breaking the silence. I felt a whiff of breeze on my face as we ascended a steep slope onto open ground. Silhouetted against the dawning sky was a windmill!

I clambered up the slope and beheld banks of solar panels and a building on a flat area of the ridge. We had come all this way to experience the wilderness and yet here was the very sort of thing we had sought to leave behind! The whole thing was a transmission or repeater station of some kind, and it was unmanned.

A few hundred yards away, we hiked up a slope, and emerged from the bushes onto the summit of Gunung Trusmadi. A trigonometric point with a Malaysian flag on it marked the highest point, but my attention was drawn to the horizon, for there, with its unmistakable serrated silhouette, was the massif of Gunung Kinabalu.

It was so clear, I could see the lights of Laban Rata resthouse and the dim flickering lights of climbers ascending to the summit. Within minutes, the scene was obscured by a dense bank of cloud. We must have seen hundreds of sunrises, yet sunrise seen from a mountaintop is always special. You feel the splendour of the empyrean.

We stood in silence as dawn slowly suffused the sky and threw the clouds into sharp relief, and colour crept into the day. The magic was broken. We took photographs, and turned back.

There was one more thing: on the way down, in the light of day, I paused before a magnificent specimen of pitcher plant. Here was an example of Nepenthes macrophylla, a species found only on this mountain and nowhere else on the planet.

The pitcher was large and had deep, wicked looking ribs with sharp ends on the rounded lip. These pointed downwards to prevent prey which had fallen into the cup from escaping. There were other species of pitcher plants, too, but I could not find the Nepenthes trusmardiensis, another pitcher plant unique to this mountain.

Still, a little thrill ran through me to witness something as beautiful and bizarre as these strange carnivorous plants. I turned and followed Brown back towards camp.

Breakfast was waiting.