As promised: Sarawak Climbing

Below is a description of climbing near Kuching, an exciting location with a great future, ripe for new routers and a small but growing local population of Rock-Jocks.

This will be available as a PDF soon for you to download.

Written by MALCOLM JITAM:

The main climbing area is at the famous Fairy Cave. This area has 8 separate walls with over eighty climbs here. Recently, local climbers started bolting at Bantang, in the Serian area. There are about 8 routes here.

Climbing in Sarawak started in 1997 when Eunice and Malcolm Jitam brought a group of Australians to bolt climbs at Royal Mulu Resort. The group then went to Kuching and in the following year bolted Batman wall and started climbing here.

The Fairy Cave Climbing Areas

Visiting climbers have commented that the Batman wall is peculiar because of the overhangs that require a lot of upper body strength while not requiring precision footwork. The rock formations with its chimneys and pillars are quite unique too.

This wall is climbable in any conditions. There is a row of stalactites that keeps both rain and sun off the wall. The climb starts from the lip of the wall with a Batman start where one needs to jump to the first clip and begin climbing from there. For the Batman start, one needs a stick clip or improvise one by cutting a length of bamboo. Grades at Batman Wall go from 6A to 7C.  There are roof climbs under this wall with a minimum grade 7B.

Batman Start

You would also need to do a Batman start to climb ‘Fist of Fairy’ a 3 pitch climb, beginning from the top of the Fairy Cave stairs. It begins with a 6A+ and has a 6C finish. The reward for this climb is to top out and walk into the gigantic Fairy Cave where you can walk down.

Other walls

The other walls have ground up starts with small crimps requiring more finger work. The grades vary between 5 to 6C. There are also a few open projects. It is estimated that these climbs are in the 7B range.

Equipment list

Climbers need a 60 meter rope and 12 draws but there are some climbs that require up to 14 draws. In addition to this are shoes, belay device and cow’s tail. A tarp is needed to keep your rope clean. A towel would come in handy to wipe the sweat and grime off.

Before climbing

Climbers should make a visual survey before sending a route to see the number of quick draws needed, or if any long draws or extension are needed, and determine the means of getting down from the climb. Some climbers take mallions with them to get lowered off in case they are unable to finish the climb.

Protection

All climbs have glue in (Hilti RE 500) and (Fixe, Petzl or Climb X) hangers on expansion bolts. Most anchors have stainless steel chains. Some have a single or double quick link (clip into both quick links at the double anchor) and other anchors have stainless steel rings where climbers should know how to tie off to be lowered off these anchors.  For hanger anchors, one needs to tie off and rap down.

Food and drink

You will also need plenty of drinking water and some food. At this time of writing, only drinks are being sold at the Fairy Cave entrance. The closest food and drink is at Thistle Café about 2 km away but best to pack from home base.  Its best to have a change of clothes after climbing as the locals are offended by dirty bodies and bad odors.

Bouldering

Most people are too busy climbing that they seldom attempt to boulder at Fairy Cave. However, the few who try are rewarded by the many problems that litter this climbing area. Needless to say, the bouldering potential is yet to be discovered.

Caving

There is a marked walkway to and though Fairy Cave. A cement and wooden walkway covers part of the trail that goes through the cave and mountain exiting at the back of Gunung Kapor (Chalk Mountain). There are several passages that require specialist knowledge in spelunking and SRT (single rope technique). 

Danger

There is no WMS and climbers need to bring their own First Aid Kit and know how to use it.

As in any climbing area, be careful of loose rock.  There are insects such as cave centipede and huntsman’s spider and snakes like the cave racer that one should be mindful of.  There is a good government hospital at Bau and several private clinics in Bau Town. Emergency phone number is 999.

The Fairy Cave Climbing Area

 The (local native) Bidayuh people are ancestral custodians of the Fairy Cave area. It has been a long and steady process since 1998 where Malcolm & Eunice Jitam have built a good and steady working relationship with them. Please do not do anything to ruin this. Courtesy and politeness will go a long way to ensure that we can all enjoy climbing here.

The Fairy Cave area comes under the Krokong village committee made up of 17 smaller villages. They are a caring, progressive and developed society. Most of the Bidayuh here are Catholics and their parish of 7 villages has worked with local climbers in carrying out community service at the climbing areas. However, like any society there are the mindless people who may cause nuisance.

Rock On is an annual climbing festival held in conjunction with the Bidayuh people in Krokong.  Besides climbing, there are lots of food, drinks and live music. The next festival will take place 24-26 May 2013.

 How To Get Here

There is a bus service from Kuching to Fairy Cave. The route goes from Kuching bus terminal at Jalan Masjid (road) to Bau town where you needs to change for bus No.2 to Krokong. Tell the driver to stop at Fairy Cave. He will stop at the road junction leading to Fairy Cave. It is 1.5km walk to the climbing area. There are road signs leading to it.

By Road. There are two roads that lead to Bau. One past Kota Sentosa and another through Batu Kawah past  Tondong. There are car and scooter rental companies in Kuching. You can navigate by following road signs or via GPS. For large groups to 6 to 10 persons, it’s best to hire a chartered van. It will cost about MYR 100 per way or MYR 270 for a full days’ charter.

Road signs are deceiving! Fairy Cave is also known as Gua Pari-Pari (in Bahasa Malaysia), so look out for Bau and the two names on road signs.

Accommodation And Food

Homestays are available at Peros village 5km away from the climbing area. Most hosts speak English and can help with transportation to and from the crag areas. It cost MYR 65 per person and this includes breakfast and dinner. Bookings must be done at least a day earlier by calling 082 450378 or email: asend@gmail.com .

Food is available at Thistle, a local café about 2 km from the crag and also in Bau, where one can find simple local dishes. Better restaurants can be found in Bau town (6km away).

Kuching Climbing

We are soon to publish a summary of the wonderful limestone climbing available down in Kuching, watch this space for route and crag beta as well as info on how to get there......

SANDAKAN CLIMBING CENTRE IS READY TO OPEN!!!!!

Friday 1st Feb is the date to put in your diary, dust off your spandex, test your grip because climbing is coming to Sandakan!
There will be competitions to inspire you, Demonstrations to amuse you, races to excite you and politicians to bore you.
Get yourselves down to the Sports Complex to meet our team and be one of the first to register, get a coveted early membership number that you can show off to your grandkids (SICC has over 5,000 members!).
There will be regular trips to Berhala Island, a pro shop and regular competitions, clubs and classes.
Be there or forever wonder why you missed it!

Civil disobedience

Sabah Indoor Climbing Centre has enjoyed a modicum of success since it was opened two years ago. There is now a small community of hard climbers, a large group of regulars and many, many who come down on occaisions.
I guess, considering the marketing we have done its not bad at all.

Now we have completed Sandakan Climbing Centre, newer, sexier and almost ready to go.

Except that it is a government project.

So, will it ever open???

We are waiting for the Sports Board to get their ducks lined up, just like we were with SICC three years ago. One promise after another falling by the wayside.

From a business perspective its a non-starter. No chance of making a real profit, its not scaleable and our landlords openly admit that if we do make money they will raise our rent to get it off us.

We remain as determined as ever to make climbing popular as a sport in Sabah, we are also determined to have athletes go and compete for Malaysia from Sabah so we are sticking at it.

We are now looking for staff to work at the Sandakan Climbing Centre, know anyone?

Climb Fest & the rest

We sent four climbers from Sabah to represent us at the inaugural Climb Fest. A wonderful festival of climbing as it turned out and just what Malaysia needs, a breath of fresh air, free of political tie-downs and unnecessary dirge.
Choosing who to sponsor was a lot of fun and as it turned out four great ambassadors of Sabah Indoor Climbing Centre went along and we were happy to sponsor them.
Its a shame that the State and federal climbing associations are so useless really, Malaysia could do so well at this sport and for a fractioon of the costs of other sports but you know how it is, the decision-makers have no idea about these sports at all, too busy lah!
Sandakan Climbing Centre is now under construction! oh yeah. In three months we hope to do a deal with Lembaga Sukan to operate the centre and team it up with the KK centre, its gonna be awesome! The great thing is the fact that we can have trips out to Berhala every single weekend! lovely, lovely Berhala. We will be improving and further developing the bolts as well as putting up new climbs as fast as we can.
We are looking for staff; international volunteers, local part-timers and full-timers too. Our team is big and friendly with many interesting things happening.
'Nuff plugging I think, back to climbing:
A couple of potential new crags in Sabah have been spotted and will be investigated quite soon, some of you told us about the big face on the left side of the Sandakan - KK road close to the Togop turn. We did go and look and found out it is an active quarry. Its looks really nice though and once they stop chucking dynamite around we are going to be right in there!
A trip up Kinabalu is planned for the end of the year, we plan to spend a couple of weeks up there in a group, anyone interested contact us and we will get some bookings made.

Dont look back, or down....

This weekend sees the welcome arrival of the Climbfest organised by Climb Malaysia (find them on Facebook etc..).
We held a small competition to see who was the best climber after eating barbeque, turns out it was Kenji with Donald snapping at his heels.
The idea was to select people to represent SICC which we did and we will go to the big city busting a gut to make sure that everyone knows that Sabah has some great climbers.
So what of other news?
Sandakan is about to get started, of course the contractor is late handing the place over but we are excited about a new climbing centre in Sabah. Especially in Sandakan with its proximity to Berhala island! I can see weekends are going to be busy developing new routes.
Any Foreign climbers with experience either building climbing walls or bolting new routes are welcome to join our team as volunteers, we can help with accommodation and food if you want to be part of the action. Drop us a line through www.ropeskills.com.my
We are also looking to do some exploring at the tun Sakaran Marine Park where there are a couple of beautiful cliffs, so far no-one has been to take a look but the National Parks office asked us if we could take a look. Anyone interested should get in touch and we will give you the beta (its volcanic by the way).
A team of our staff is in Terenganu this week filming bees with a Canadian TV crew, I figure a bee suit has to be hot and getting swarmed by the stingy little fellas when you are hanging on a rope, unable to run like hell does not sound like a bundle of fun. I am sure there will be stories to tell when they get back.

Jeez, Amnesiac.....

Climbing trip this friday to Berhala, sandsone, oh gritty, gritty loveliness. You will be twitching with excitement if you go, I promise.

Sorry for the delay but tons to tell you;

Sabah Climbing Association is now established, Ed is the Chairman and Roy is the secretary. With luck we can now ask the government to give us funds to run a state-wide climbing competition with a view to running a nation-wide comp later in the year.

Designs for the new climbing pillar at SICC are on the way, input from you guys is always welcome though, looks like it will be about 12 - 15 metres high and have some 10 or more lines. I theory this could give us upwards of another 30 routes!

Sandakan is soon to have a new climbing centre, work starts at the beginning of April and is thought to only take about 4 months to complete. I would not expect it to open immediately though, the one in KK was a year before Lembaga Sukan decided to open it!

We are especially excited about Sandakan because of its proximity to Berhala Island. We may have to invest in a boat and start running weekly trips out there. Its time to get some more routes put up, the Sandakan cik-caks will be a busy bunch!

Roy managed to get a busload of models to come to SICC recently and into harnesses, it is of course a tough job that Roy has and putting harnesses onto models is just one of the ways that he demonstrates his dedication...... (did he use a Gri gri?)

Morning Glory

If you strip away all the unnecessary crap that we have in our lives and kept hold of two or three important things, what would they be?
Climbing is a given, it is quite obvious and totally legitimate so thats easy but what else? TV? Music? Mountain biking?
Where would you look for answers? I just thought of the things that I look forward to the most, Watching a good game of football with my friends is one for sure.
The last thing I would hold on to would be .........................

Yuji Hariyama comes to tea

The Japanese world cup winner drops by our humble climbing centre to try some Borneo climbing. A good day was had by all.

Not really climbing but quite good anyway...

Some crazy-haired scientists wanted a 50 metre tower building in the jungle so they could climb up there to sniff the air. Who are we to wonder why? Who are we to turn the work down? Can you do it? they said, hell yes professor we said.

dopes with ropes and hopes

It seems like we just crash-landed into the new year.
A funny start to the year with Bear Grylls and although Ed and Naz did most of the work on the shoot I was the one that got the photo with him, it wasn't meant to be that way but thats what happened.
He's a dude though and no mistake, a great team that works with him too, slightly bonkers but I guess thats to be expected.
So the climbing centre has seen a decline in numbers at last, I know that many people were complaining back in October and November how it was too busy, well you all stopped coming and now its too quiet! In fact we are going to have to start marketing, its that drastic. Problem is that its pretty well tucked away at the end of a car park in a place that everyone knows but you just cant describe to anyone.for some reason all climbing walls are like that, even Camp 5 is a royal pain in the arse to find at One Utama, and you can see it from the street!
So we have a promotion going for Chinese new year; you bring along a novice to register and you get your climbing session at half price, its a winner all round. The way we see it is this: if someone tries climbing and they like it, they will always come back, if they dont like it then they have tried something new and now know a little more about themselves, how can it ever be a negative thing?
Did you see the new poster yet? a 'doctored' photo from Charles Phang (that guy gets everywhere), looks great and it should be appearing all over town any day now........

2011 already?

You have to wonder where all the time goes, one minute its piling up in front of you in the shape of plans and bookings and stuff you are gonna do then, out of the blue, wallop! Its zipped by, like a bee in a strong wind and you are left scratching your head and feeling a bit older.
So resolutions aside - since no-one ever keeps them anyway - what didnt you get done that you wanted to? I know for a fact that I was going to get strong, train on the bouldering wall for a few hours a week and do a lot of routes. Did I? No, I didn't so I am not strong. Also I was going to try to sort out my 'store room' at home or as my wife likes to call it, my Junk Room. I did open the door a few times with good intentions but the task will require so much time that it seems easier just to close the door and forget it again for a while. Since my beer fridge is in there I do have to go in with some regularity but do my best to avoid eye-contact with any of the mess.
So I hope that twenty-eleven is going to be a year that I can get strong again, I love climbing at Berhala so its worth training before I go again, what a great sense of satisfaction to clip the top bolts.

Berhala & kironngu again

Oh yes it all seems to be happening with us.
The trip to Berhala was pretty damn good, too many climbs to tackle in a weekend though.

If you want to try real rock climbing then let us know, better still ask anyone who has been out with us to Kironngu or Berhala and sign up for our next outing.....

Climb On! Singapore

In our relentless pursuit of excellence and success we have dispatched the Red Gecko climbing team from Sabah to wreak a special kind of havoc in the oh-so-straight world of Singapore. Country boys they may be and the big city might be a handfull but these guys are Sabahan and if theres one thing that you can say about Sabahans, they are adaptable!

What - evvveeeerrrr

You find yourself in a hole and you gotta start looking for a way out. Get used to it down there and its all over.
Never mind negativity, the chalk bag is half-full and dont ever forget it. Put another way; regardless of gravity's density on any given day, sometimes you are going to climb like a monkey and sometimes like a bag of onions. If its an onion bag day; dont sweat it, go home and take it easy. Come back tomorrow and it will probably be a monkey day.
Blog-catharsis this is.

Ok so moving on to a much more grounded subject, outdoor rock-climbing to be precise, the trip we have organised to Kironggu rock in Inanam for the 31st of October is now full, glad to see that people want to get out there and try the real stuff!
We do still have space on our trip to Berhala Island on the 6th and 7th of November, its going to be a doozy! big, scary and very lots of fun!
Sign up and lets get over there......

Its a strange thing how us humans are rarely, if ever, satisfied. At most its a passing sensation, a post-coital glow, the scoring of a goal or winning point, momentary and fleeting. Like a frangrance it is evaporating from the moment you put it on until only the memory of it remains.
How often do we wish for something, work for it, make sacrifices and compromises to get the thing of our desire only to experience a sinking sensation of anticlimax once we are holding it?
Is this what drives us to never stop, to move from one target to the next, a never-ending pursuit of the unobtainable, satisfaction?
So it is with the climbing centre in Kota Kinabalu. A major triumph for our team, the result of much hard work, sleepless nights, risky investment and zealous passion. A project that took a year to get operational after it was completed and one which we had no idea if it would be a success or monumental flop.
Our first month saw around 900 climbing sessions happen, around 30 people a night came down, climbed and hung out. Many of them have been coming down regularly.

Why is it then that we are left feeling unfulfilled?

Its like eating toast in bed, it feels great and sometimes you deserve it yet, there are crumbs in the bed afterwards and its hard to enjoy the sensation of satisfaction.

Its because us humans have a nirvana-type view of our desired outcome, there are no crumbs on our imaginary toast.

I have a feeling that heaven will be like that, there will be queues, bad food and tons of paperwork. Oh sure it will be a nice place, fluffy clouds or whatever but there will still be grafitti in the toilets and noisy neighbours..............

Back to the Climbing Centre (remember, its a blog about climbing). Though the operations are running swimmingly and numbers are great and we are finally starting to get strong again ourselves, it is too small, there are not enough routes, we need a shop and the Wireless is malfunctioning. All little things that suck out any indulgence into self-satisfaction at the overall success and undermine any bosom-swelling shows of pride one might be tempted to display.

Just thought I would share that with you.........

New gear!

We have now started to stock climbing kit at SICC. Shoes by La Sportiva, Evolve and Rock Pillars. Black Diamond and Ocun harnesses as well as a selection of carabiners, belay devices and chalk bags. For now they are cheap so get them while you can!

COME ON!!!!!!

The Sabah indoor climbing centre has been open for nearly three weeks now, three weeks of chalk dust, registrations, route setting, bad coffee, aching arms and the odd spinning hold (thanks Sebastian).
Many thanks to all of you who have supported us and told your friends about us. Many thanks to all of you that keep on coming down to enjoy the climbing and the wonderful wit and banter that we provide for free.
Many thanks also to all those who came down, learned to belay and got good very bloody fast.
It is extremely gratifying to see so many people in KK come down and try rock climbing, hear the screams of fear and reassure parents that their child will probably go home and try to climb every piece of furniture in the place.....

WEBSITE

www.sicc.com.my

Opening Time!

Like waking from a coma, the drowsy realisation that there is activity around you and something is happening that you should be a part of.
You need to be a part of this....
Sabah Indoor Climbing Centre at Likas is opening this week. We have the date set for the 'official' opening and signing ceremony on Wednesday which means that on Saturday we are open for business. That is Saturday the 28th of August.
Climbing is free for the first weekend and for the first month the first sessions will be free for everyone who turns up and joins (membership is RM10). We will run training sessions and belaying assessments for the first month for free at set times and there will be a stream of incentives flying around.
Our objective is simply to get people climbing, introduce the sport / lifestyle to the people of Sabah and let them join the global community of rock climbers.
Please help us by putting the word out, we have virtually no marketing budget because we are charging so little to use the centre, we need you to be a part of this new thing.
This saturday we will have a barbeque at the centre, please come along, bring your friends and take a look at the centre, have a go at climbing. what have you got to lose?