The 7 distress events that painted our 7 rainbow colours of the climb

Rainbows are usually acquainted with happy moments. You might see photos of jovial children playing in an open field amidst a huge rainbow in the background. In our case, it was 7 distress events that were dancing amidst a colourful rainbow. I will explain these events later in my blog.

This year we had 200 registered climbers but only 192 made the climb and it is our biggest group ever! We had to break the group into 2 days climb like last year. Day 1, 10^th July, 100 climbers and Day 2, 11^th July, 92 climbers. Apart from climbers there were also non-climbers who tagged along just for the fun of it and they numbered approximately 20. To transfer the groups from KK airport to Kinabalu Park, we had to hire 5 buses.

This year we had a corporate product sponsor, Fusion Excel. They contributed products for sale in which all proceed goes to Persatuan Kanak-Kanak Istimewa Hulu Langat. There were also lucky draw prizes for climbers. Demonstration of these products were conducted by Mr. Willy Toh of Fusion Excel which got many climbers excited and awe. A rough indication of total product sales was told to me as amounting to RM19,000. Wow! A good job well done by Fusion Excel.

Unlike previous years, the climb up Mt. Kinabalu this year was exceptionally blessed with tremendously good weather. The sky was clear, wind conditions were mild and rain hold its bank till late in the afternoon for 3 days of the climb. Our 192 climbers with various fitness level, age and race could not have asked for anything more.

Now here is the interesting part of my blog in which I will detail it out the major distress events that happened using the 7 colours of the rainbow:

1. RED: Jimmy and committee members AirAsia flight got delayed 3 hours in KL due to airplane’s technical fault. They were promised free lunch upon landing (hooray!) but later got only Tiger biscuit and a pack of drink (what a cheapskate!).
2. ORANGE: Zen Resort had a landslide recently rendering some of the units unusable and some collapsed. This caused the 2^nd batch climbers to be housed in 3 separate hotels in Kundasang, namely Zen Resort, Kinabalu Pine Resorts and Perkasa Hotel. It was a long day for them as some of them had to checked-in as late as 10pm.
3. YELLOW: In the 1^st day climb, a man climber misunderstood instructions and used Mesilau route to climb down Mt. Kinabalu. This is the 1^st time in 12 years of our climb that this grave mistake happened.
4. GREEN: In the 1^st day climb, a senior couple and their friend, all from Singapore, arrived at Timpohon gate almost midnight. This is the ‘super’ latest on our record however they reached the peak!
5. BLUE: In the 2^nd day climb, a man climber had his leg muscles severely stressed and thus injured it got to be brought down to Timpohon gate by stretcher which cost him RM1,300.
6. INDIGO: In the 2^nd day climb, a lady climber in the midst of rush forgotten to collect her baggage at Kinabalu Park which she was to collect upon coming down Mt. Kinabalu. Ryan (Zen Resort boss) then had it arranged to send to her the next day.
7. VIOLET: One of the committee members left his bag in KK airport. He flew back to KL without that bag. The fate of the bag is uncertain.

VITAL STATISTICS:

Total no. of climbers: 192

Timpohon climbers: 55 (day 1) + 56 (day 2) = 111

Mesilau climbers: 45 (day 1) + 36 (day 2) = 81

Percentage of climbers that reached summit: 75%

Earliest time reached summit: 4.27am

Latest time reached summit: approx. 8.30am

Total donation collected (as of 25^th July): approx. RM70,000