Originally Posted by infinity
Oh yah, some additional qns,
3. Heard of these agency - TakemetoAsia or PacWest? Recommended by a friend for convenience ease. 
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Yes I'm familiar with Pacwest. Their boss Francis is a great guy and a veteran in mountaineering, and I my 1st high altitude trip in year 2000 to Kilimanjaro was with him. Not sure whether he is still running the show though, and for smaller trip like Kinabalu, it will probably be just one of his trip leaders.
Originally Posted by infinity
Hi, just to share additional info I found out, some of the travel agencies also recommend Timpohon due to Mesilau being longer and also most of my team are new to mountain climbing. A group of 8 and above should get me good rates so I was told. 
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If your team is large enough and you have some members that are fitter then the rest, you can consider splitting up the group. One group will take the Timpohon trail while the other the Mesilau trail. It will be slightly more expensive since you are hiring 2 guides, but it is more versatile. For your fitness level, with some conditioning I'm quite sure you'd have no problem doing Mesilau. And going up by Mesilau and coming down by Timpohon is excellent choice, and in fact all my trips there were done this way.
Originally Posted by Stuffed
I second that. If this is your first attempt at mountain climbing, or summitting is your primary goal, then do Timpohon. My group was previously contemplating this too, and we reasoned that we should try to reach Laban Rata as early as possible and rest well for the main summit push, and therefore chose the Timpohon route.
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Yes that's right. If the general fitness of your team is not really great, then do it via Timpohon. This will give you more time to rest at Laban Rata and help increasing your chance of summitting the next morning. Also, most agency will arrange the trip such that you'll descend the same day right after summit attempt in order to save cost. While this is doable, it is highly physically demanding and do not provide you a second chance for the summit. For my trips I would usually plan for staying one additional night at Laban Rata after the summit attempt. If the weather is bad, you would at least have another shot for the summit the next morning. Otherwise if you're successful in the 1st summit attempt, you can just relax and enjoy the rest of the afternoon, and only descend the next morning. In one of my Mt. Kinabalu, we encountered strong wind and heavy downpour due to Typhoon Ling Ling, and was unseccessful in our 1st summit attempt. Luckily we had the spare day and summitted the next day. In another trip where we were blessed with good weather, we spent the rest of the day drinking red wine (we brought 5L up) and enjoying at Laban Rata resthouse, after descending from the summit.
1 Week Ago
Re: Kota Kinabalu Trip
