Travel and Photography | Laban Rata | Mount Kinabalu

Laban Rata offers a restaurant, dormitories with common bathroom and toilet, as well as private rooms that feature essential amenities. Sitting 3,272 metres above sea level in Kinabalu National Park, the lodge offers great views of the surrounding area, cool mountain air, and a quiet atmosphere. The lodge is also 90 km from the airport.

Most people who climb Mount Kinabalu will choose 2 day one night trip. They will start climbing either from Timpohon or Mesilau Gate. Most people, depending on their fitness level will reach Laban Rata around 12 PM or 2:30 PM, if they started their climbing around 8 AM in the morning. Our team reach Laban Rata at 4 PM (The Helipad) after starting our journey from Timpohon Gate at 8:10 AM.

But I’ve met few people along the way who had told me that some climbers in their team reach Laban Rata at 9 PM and some of them reach Laban Rata at 11 PM. So it depends on the individual. The best time to reach Laban Rata is around 3 PM or before 4:30 PM because they will serve dinner at 4:30 PM.

You don’t really need to bring lots of foods with you because everything was provided in the climbing package (foods), maybe you need to bring along some extra power bars or light snacks and a bottled of mineral water when you climb to the summit in the early morning as early as 2 AM. But normally people will start climbing to the summit of Low’s Peak at 2:30 AM because the breakfast/supper only start at 2 AM, after having their meals then only they start climbing.

If you take a look at the Laban Rata restaurant where people having their meals, actually it is on a less crowded day. We climb on 4th December and the total of the climbers is less than 70 people, but on the previous day (3rd December,) the total climbers is more than 160 people, so you can imagine how packed the place can be.

At first we didn’t managed to secure our place at Laban Rata but due to less people, we were upgraded to Laban Rata, at first we were given a Gunting Lagadan Hut, just few meters above Laban Rata. But, If we were stayed at Gunting Lagadan we will think twice about going down to Laban Rata at 2 AM in the morning to have our breakfast, and went back to Gunting Lagadan Hut, it is not very far but on the mountain, 100 meters seems very far and such a tall order.

This is my second time stayed at Laban Rata, previously I’ve stayed at Panar Laban and Gunting Lagadan Hut.

Travel and Photography | Laban Rata | Mount Kinabalu | Sabah

Wazari Wazir

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