Climbing Mount Kinabalu: What to Eat and Drink

For a Kinabalu climb, the food and water plan is simple: start day one with 1 to 1.5 litres of water and snacks you’ll actually eat every hour, treat or buy any water you refill, eat the 2 am supper even if you’re not hungry, and skip the beer at Laban Rata. Drinking extra water won’t protect you from altitude sickness, but alcohol was linked to almost four times the odds of it in a study of 345 Kinabalu climbers.

Most Kinabalu tips cover gear and permits. This one is just about what goes in your mouth over two days, from Timpohon Gate to Low’s Peak and back.

The two days at a glance

Most climbers do it as two days and one night, sleeping at Panalaban, the base camp area around Laban Rata at about 3,270 m. Timings vary by operator, so check yours. A typical plan looks like this:

Sources for the logistics: Mount Kinabalu climbing information, plus operator itineraries from Amazing Borneo and Sticky Rice Travel.

Notice what that means. The meals are taken care of. The gaps between them are yours: about five hours on day one, the summit push in the dark, and a long descent on tired legs.

Day one: eat before the gate, then little and often

Day one is a long, steady climb, not a race, so you need less fuel per hour than a runner but for longer than most people expect. For efforts of one to two and a half hours, the American College of Sports Medicine’s guidance is 30 to 60 g of carbohydrate an hour (Thomas et al., 2016). At hiking pace, the lower end of that is a sensible target once you’re past the first hour or two.

In food terms, 30 g is roughly a medium banana with a couple of sweets, two slices of bread with kaya, or a typical cereal bar plus a few biscuits. Check the labels on what you pack.

• Eat a proper breakfast in Kota Kinabalu or Kundasang before the two-hour drive. Pickup is often around 6 to 7 am, and you won’t start walking until after registration.
• Split the packed lunch. Eat half at a shelter around the halfway mark and half later, rather than all of it at once and nothing for two hours.
• Snack at shelters. The Timpohon trail has a string of them, from Kandis near the bottom to Layang-Layang at about 2,740 m. Using them as eating stops gives you a natural rhythm.

Most climbers don’t need electrolyte supplements on Kinabalu. The cloud forest is cooler than the lowlands, the packed lunch and dinner are salty enough, and you’ll sweat less than on a hike up Gunung Nuang or Bukit Broga. If you sweat heavily and see white salt marks on your shirt after training hikes, add salty snacks such as crackers or nuts.

How much water to carry, and where to refill

Start with 1 to 1.5 litres, which is a practical amount for a cool, humid day of steady climbing, and plan to top up. One operator recommends bringing a refillable bottle of 0.5 to 1 litre, and climbers do refill along the trail, but that water is untreated. Bring purification tablets or a filter, or carry enough not to need it.

Information about drinking water at the top is inconsistent. One operator says Laban Rata Resthouse does not provide boiled water for refills and that Pendant Hut provides filtered hot water; another says Laban Rata has filtered water. Ask your operator before you go, and bring cash for bottled water as a fallback.

Altitude increases water loss through breathing and urine, so you may need a little more than the cool air suggests (Stellingwerff et al., 2019). Pale yellow urine at Laban Rata is a good sign. If you want a number from your own body, do a training hike with our sweat rate calculator, but expect less sweat on Kinabalu than on a lowland hill.

Will drinking more water prevent altitude sickness?

No. The best evidence comes from Kinabalu itself. Researchers surveyed 345 climbers after day one at 3,272 m and after the summit. About 24% had acute mountain sickness after day one and 22% after day two, mostly mild. Water intake wasn’t associated with it, and neither were fitness, previous altitude experience or ascent time. Alcohol was: climbers who drank had 3.7 times the odds of altitude sickness. Having it on day one made it far more likely on day two, and getting advice from a guide on day one roughly halved the odds (Yang et al., 2020).

The Wilderness Medical Society’s guidelines say the same thing from the other direction: forcing extra fluid doesn’t prevent altitude illness and raises the risk of low blood sodium, though staying adequately hydrated matters because dehydration can feel like altitude sickness (Luks et al., 2019).

So drink to thirst and keep your urine pale, but don’t force litres down. Leave the beer for Kota Kinabalu. And tell your guide if you have a headache at Laban Rata; that’s information they can use.

Dinner at Laban Rata: eat even if you don’t want to

Appetite often drops at altitude, and the risk of eating too little rises with it (Stellingwerff et al., 2019). Many climbers pick at dinner because they feel slightly off, then start the summit push five hours of sleep later with an empty tank.

Make dinner carbohydrate-heavy: rice, noodles, bread, potatoes. Small portions, a second trip back, a warm drink. If you can’t face a full plate, eat half and take something to nibble before bed.

The 2 am supper and the summit push

Eat something from the early supper, even two slices of toast and a hot drink. You’ll be climbing granite and holding ropes in the dark for about three hours, in cold wind, and the Sayat-Sayat checkpoint has a cut-off. Ask your guide what time it is. Running out of energy below it ends the climb.

• Carry 0.5 to 0.75 litres. You won’t drink much in the cold, but you’ll want some on the way down.
• Pocket snacks you can eat with gloves on. Open the wrappers the night before. Sweets, a soft bar or a small bag of raisins are easier than anything that needs two hands.
• Eat at the stops, not on the rope sections. A few mouthfuls every 45 minutes is enough.

The descent is where people run out

After the summit you return to Laban Rata for a late breakfast, then face 4 to 5 hours down. This is where climbers get careless. The goal is done, legs are shaking, and the snack bag is empty. Eat a real breakfast, refill your water, and keep two or three snacks for the descent. Tired, underfed legs are more likely to slip on the steps below Layang-Layang.

Lunch at Park HQ starts recovery. For the next couple of days of sore quads, see our guide to recovery after a marathon or ultra, which applies just as well to a mountain.

Food and water checklist for Kinabalu

• Two bottles totalling 1 to 1.5 litres
• Purification tablets or a filter, and cash for bottled water
• Six to eight snacks of about 25 to 30 g of carbohydrate each, split between day one, the summit and the descent
• Something salty if you’re a heavy sweater
• A thermos or insulated bottle if you like a warm drink at the top

Training for Kinabalu on lowland hills? That’s where hydration matters more. Our hydration guide for Malaysian heat covers those hot weekend hikes, and how many carbs per hour explains the fuelling numbers if you go on to trail running.

References

1. Yang SL, Ibrahim NA, Jenarun G, Liew HB (2020). Incidence and determinants of acute mountain sickness in Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia. High Altitude Medicine & Biology, 21(3), 265-272. doi:10.1089/ham.2020.0026
2. Luks AM, Auerbach PS, Freer L, et al. (2019). Wilderness Medical Society clinical practice guidelines for the prevention and treatment of acute altitude illness: 2019 update. Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 30(4S), S3-S18. doi:10.1016/j.wem.2019.04.006
3. Stellingwerff T, Peeling P, Garvican-Lewis LA, et al. (2019). Nutrition and altitude: strategies to enhance adaptation, improve performance and maintain health: a narrative review. Sports Medicine, 49(Suppl 2), 169-184. doi:10.1007/s40279-019-01159-w
4. Thomas DT, Erdman KA, Burke LM (2016). American College of Sports Medicine joint position statement: nutrition and athletic performance. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 48(3), 543-568. doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000000852
5. Mount Kinabalu: climbing information, trails and shelters. mountkinabalu.com
6. Amazing Borneo. 2D1N Mount Kinabalu Climb itinerary. amazingborneo.com
7. Sticky Rice Travel. Mount Kinabalu Climb. stickyricetravel.com

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