We did 3 days and two nights with Amazing Borneo for our hike up Mt Kinabalu, including the Low’s Peak Via Ferrata with Mountain Torq. The operators were fantastic, made the whole experience seamless and our hiking guide Abnu was brilliant, making sure that we were moving at a decent pace.
Honesty: the hike itself is brutal. 6km on the first day doesn’t sound too bad, but it is steeeep – you go up over 1.4km in that time. The last 500 metres makes you pay for every step, my partner and I have done a fair bit of hiking up mountains and this one costs you physically. The next day, it’s a 1:30am rise after staying in a dorm and a 2:30am start to the summit with not a lot of brekky. It took us 3 hours trekking in the dark to get to the top, thank goodness there is a rope to guide you. It's a little crowded at the top, but the groups space themselves out based on ability, so there is plenty of room for everybody.
Yes it's hard but it’s totally worth it. Standing on the top of the mountain while the sun comes up after such an arduous adventure gives a feeling of satisfaction and achievement that you can’t get many other ways. You'll start feeling refreshed as soon as you start your descent.
Though you’ve just hit the top, you’ve now got to get back down, which is a long journey, all on foot. There are no easy ways down the mountain, though some people elect to have a porter carry them down.
The Via Ferrata was a great adventure, made even better by the fact that you’ll have to do it around sunrise. Doesn’t require so much fitness as being comfortable with heights, you just need fitness to get up there. If you’re doing the long one, you need a decent amount of stamina: there is a 300 metre trek through the jungle to switch from one Ferrata to the other and that is not easy. When you get to the start of the next Ferrata, you’ll see that you are headed back uphill, or up-rock, which is totally doable, but we were pretty wrecked by the time we started.
Well worth your time and Amazing Borneo takes care of everything for you. You just need to get up the hill.