To wrap up my two gap years between high school and university I planned a five-ish month backpacking trip through South East Asia.

A highlight of that memorable trip was summiting Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia...twice. The first summit was around 27 September 1982, and I went back up a week later too.

Back then it was required that each group have a guide, and the typical hike involved a late morning departure from Kinabalu Park Headquarters, a hike through the remarkable forest up to a fairly crude hut at about 10,000 ft where the climbers spend the night, then a pre-dawn wake-up for the final hike and scramble to the 13,436 ft summit in time for sunrise.

My climbing partners for the first summit were two German backpackers, Katrin and Ralph. They kindly took these photos, the only photos I have of my entire trip.

Upper left: Mount Kinabalu from a distance through the tropical haze.
Upper right: Me at the summit with my guide. There was a fair amount of climbers' debris and graffiti.
Lower left: Katrin resting on the trail.
Lower right: Ralph resting as well, though he might have slipped.