Walking the Torq

Mount Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

As we stood at the edge of the vertical descent, I wondered if we were over ambitious with our itinerary. Instead of going back from where we came from, Walk the Torq took us on a different path altogether – a 430m rock traverse & ascend and a 6m Monkey Bridge. Somewhere in the brochure it was stated as easy, suitable for beginners and most encouragingly; anyone, age 10 to 70, can climb the Mountain Torq via ferrata.

The hardest part for me was taking that first step over the ledge at the beginning of the descent. Surprisingly once you get past that, it all became easier and before long, we were walking on steep rock surface taking in the view. Two things I learnt:

1. Don’t rely on a breakfast bar eaten at 2am to sustain you through your summit climb AND Walk the Torq (there’s simply not enough calories to go around).

2. Don’t start your descent after 8am. The sun will burn you mercilessly and a slow progress will guarantee you to miss the buffet breakfast (as we did)…