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The Limestone Pinnacles of Mulu
"Huge stone daggers resembling some giant's fangs, perfectly smooth but razor sharp and as tall as a six-storeyed building, circling a jungle shrouded mountain top in the interior of Borneo".
John Briggs, Parks of Malaysia
©2000 A Adnan
The Pinnacles of Mulu are one of the most remarkable natural formations that I have ever seen. Though you may have seen photographs of the pinnacles, they do not prepare you for the breathtaking spectacle that awaits you at the end of the 2.4-kilometre trek up Mount Api to the look-out ridge.
Only 2.4 kilometres? A walk in the (national) park, right? Wrong. The trek was difficult enough that a member of our group became quite delirious on the descent down from the pinnacles.
©2000 A Adnan
©2000 Raja Teh Maimunah Aziz
Getting there
The trek up to the pinnacles starts near Camp 5, located up the Melinau river from the National Park HQ. Getting to Camp 5 takes about half a day: first an hour-long boat ride up the Melinau river, followed by a 8.7-kilometre trek (which took us about 2½ hours, including the lunch stop).
At times the Melinau river was too shallow for the longboat, giving Sha and Joe the opportunity to jump into the water and push the boats upstream through the rapids, an opportunity that they clearly relished.
©2000 Raja Teh Maimunah Aziz
The trail to Camp 5 is part of the Headhunter Trail, which eventually leads to Limbang. (This was the trail that was ridden by Han Rey and Steve Peat in 1999, an account of which was published in Bike Magazine). An hour's walk from the put-out point will take you to a shelter by the Melinau river, at which point lunch may be had. From the shelter, look downstream at the river, and you will see shimmering silver flashes that you will first mistake for sunlight reflected from the choppy water. Look more carefully and you will see that the numerous flashes are in fact the silver sides of fish, which momentarily catch the sunlight as the fish dart and swerve in the shallow water.
The trail itself is fairly undemanding, rocky and rooty in a few places and perhaps muddy in the wet season. The timing of our trip in the dry season was propitious (thank you, Sha): there was only 1 leech bite among the 4 of us.
Camp 5
©2000 Raja Teh Maimunah Aziz
I cannot imagine a camp site in Malaysia that is located in a more idyllic setting. Camp 5 is located on the East bank of the Melinau river, sandwiched between Mount Api, behind the camp, and Mount Benarat, an imposing limestone wall (which, according to Briggs, is awaiting a first ascent). As the sun set in the evening, this limestone wall was bathed in an orange glow that caused to well in me—not the only time for me on this trip to Mulu—the feeling described by C.S. Lewis as true happiness, of not wanting to be anywhere else at that moment in time.
The facilities at the camp were quite impressive: solar panels operated a pump that drew water from the river to supply the kitchen and toilets. The original camp 5 building now houses a fuel-powered generator that supplied electrical power to the camp. This building was also where the guides did their cooking. Our guide, Yusof, was a capable cook who was able to quickly gauge Teh's need for the liberal application of cili padi into everything that she ate, and so with commendable foresight brought along with him a jealously guarded packet of these extremely hot chillies.
©2000 A Adnan
Cooking was accomplished through the use of firewood over an open fire. All food was brought in, except that on the second night we had persuaded Yusof to pick some pucuk paku (fern shoots), which proved so bitter to the taste that we were able to finish half a plate only with quiet determination and firm resolve. I believe it was the only item of food that we had left to waste in our 7 days in the Mulu National Park, such was the gluttony that accompanied our physical exertions. This photo was taken at night, with balanced ambient and flash illumination (exposure about 20 seconds, handheld) creating the somewhat surreal ghostly feel.
©2000 A Adnan
But despite the well-appointed nature of camp 5, our stay there was not without lament: the camp was supposed to have been looked after by a mountain guide employed by the national park. Unfortunately, some dispute over the payment of fees had led to the guide leaving the camp some 2 weeks prior to our arrival, leading inevitably to the breakdown of the water pump and the slow but inexorable decline in hygiene standards. I waited until we were back at Park HQ before I did a Big Job.
The Trek to the Pinnacles
As mentioned earlier, the trek to the pinnacles is only 2.4 kilometres long, shorter than the walk from Laban Rata to the summit of Kinabalu but judging from the accounts in the Camp 5 log book of those who have done both trails, it is by far the harder proposition. The pinnacles are located at about 1200 metres, or about two-thirds the way up Mount Api, which at 1710 metres is the highest limestone mountain between Thailand and New Guinea. Its Malay name, Gunung Api, means Fire Mountain. The porous limestone and the dry humus and vegetation are easily combustible by lightning strikes, which was the likely cause for a huge fire observed on Mount Api in 1910 that raged for several weeks, leading to the speculation of volcanoes in Borneo.
©2000 A Adnan
The first 850 metres of the ascent is a steep uphill walk. The final 300 metres or so involves some scrambling over sharp rocks, climbing a set of 12 aluminium ladders lashed onto rocks and roots, and hauling oneself up on fixed ropes. The ascent may be accomplished by those with reasonable fitness, and does not require technical climbing skills, although care must be exercised because the exposure (the consequences of falling) can be quite high at places. The adventurous may opt to freeclimb the laddered sections, and this may be done without rockclimbing boots. It had taken our group, walking at a moderately easy pace, 4 hours to reach the end of the pinnacles trail.
The trail is clearly marked with red and white paint (which can be seen in the photograph at left), and visitors are advised to follow the marked path closely. Yusof told us of a Singaporean who, perhaps feeling temporarily liberated of the constrictive rules of his city state, ventured off-trail and fell to his death on some pinnacles. Thus, I suspect, cutting short his holiday.
Suitably forewarned, we climbed with deliberate care, which evidently did not prevent one of the two poseurs in our group to strike URTV poses at the appropriate times (picture at left).
The view of the pinnacles was simply astounding. The common thought that ran through each of our minds when we set eyes upon them was that the scene of stark and imposing grandeur that unfolded before us was worth the arduous uphill trek.
©2000 A Adnan
The pictures on this page perhaps do not do justice to the scale and expanse of the pinnacles. Some of these stone spires clearly exceeded 100 feet in height, and despite the use of an ultra-wide 20mm lens, I could not capture the vast panorama in a single image.
We munched on soggy sandwiches and licked melted chocolate for a while, after which Teh passed the time by doing a passable impersonation of a Bollywood star. After an hour at the top, it was time to head down.
Paradoxically, we felt that walking downhill was much harder: perhaps because the steepness of the trail becomes more obvious as you faced the void before you, rather than the side of the hill. And whereas you could use your upper body to assist in the ascent, you were more or less solely dependent on your quadriceps in the descent. Perhaps also we were not as fresh as we had been earlier in the day — the spring was definitely missing from the step.
After about 2 hours, it was clear that the final vestiges of any spring in Teh's step had long since expired. As we descended the hillside, so too did she into a hypoglycaemic delirium, brought upon by the cumulative effects of the exertion and lack of food.
As tiredness sets in, one tends to lose one's sense of judgement: rotten branches, once dismissed as handholds, took on a secure, oaken aspect in the mind's eye. Rocky sections which before I would have carefully picked my way through, were then stumbled over in a single lazy leap.
Unfortunately, this downward spiral of Teh's mental state also had the effect of making her abusive of her hiking partners.
"It should only be half an hour away"was a particularly memorable exchange.
"But you said that half a fucking hour ago! How many fucking half hours are there in an hour?!"
©2000 A Adnan
©2000 D Shaharudin
©2000 D Shaharudin
Sha and I had to dig deep into our much depleted reserves of diplomacy and patience to persuade Teh that, no, waiting there while one of us ran back to camp for food was probably not a feasible proposition. I do not clearly recall how we made through that last 2 hours, but I do remember my ears being decidedly hot at the end. Finally, just when we began to entertain thoughts that spending a night on the trail was not such a bad idea after all, we came to a roped section of trail that marked the beginning of the trail. Just 200 metres to go!
We stumbled into camp, whereupon Teh indecorously invaded the kitchen and made quick work of some stale scrambled eggs from breakfast. I remember thinking to myself at the time that nothing I had seen before, and probably nothing that I will see hence, better epitomised the phrase "pouring down one's gullet".
We had survived the Pinnacles of Mulu!
Text Copyright Azizul Adnan ©2000. Photographs Copyright Raja Teh Maimunah Aziz, D Shaharudin and Azizul Adnan ©2000. This page created on 18 August 2000.
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