Borneo: July 2007.

When I was at school a field trip may be visit to the zoo or a nearby park, the world is now smaller and travel is cheaper, consequently we are travelling further. Every July literally hundreds of expeditions head out to travel and hike remote and often dangerous locations. What is even more remarkable is that these trips are comprised of ten to twenty young people aged 15-18. These expeditions were pioneered by the British organization ‘World Challenge’, the idea being that young people are taken out of their comfort zone and encouraged to take responsibility for the day to day running of an expedition under the supervision of an adult expedition leader, promoting self development, leadership and responsibility. World Challenge now have offices in Canada, Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia and America, last year facilitating over 350 expeditions from Ecuador to Everest base camp. As you can imagine at over $5,000 per student this is big business. There are other companies delivering the same package under a different guise. One I have worked for is ‘Wilderness Expertise’, running only 20 expeditions a year they have a more family feel about them.

I’ve led three of these school trips now, not a bad deal for a leader, it can certainly be challenging but also very rewarding to see young people gain confidence almost hourly. The way they are normally structured is two or three days acclimatisation, followed by a week long project phase. This could be a conservation project working in a national park, helping out at an orphanage, or teaching English. Next the students have a trekking phase of about ten days and finally a cultural phase, travelling the country and seeing the sights.

This year I was responsible for 15 students from one of the top ‘ladies’ colleges in Britain. The school also sent along two of their teachers, this is now a recommended guideline for most local authorities in the UK. It is good to have extra support on these trips, although inexperienced teachers can require as much support as the students.

We were to travel to Borneo, a place I was familiar with after the Jack Osborne show, although this time I was travelling North, and the region known as Sarawak. It was a great trip, the girls were intelligent and easy going and for once we didn’t have any serious medical issues. The slides in this section are from the trekking phase. The girls decided to climb ‘Trusmadi’, the second highest mountain in Sarawak, don’t get me wrong it’s not that high (6,500ft), but cover that with loose soil, steep slopes and jungle, throw in a violent storm with thunder and lightening, icy cold winds gusting to 100mph, a tired inexperienced group and it becomes a completely different challenge… 

CLIMBING TRUSMADI

Not a good start, one of my students had a mysterious injury to her arm shortly before leaving the UK. The doctors had no idea what it was, and found no evidence of a break or trauma and what’s even more interesting is that she had no idea how it happened! With the expedition leaving in three weeks the docs put the arm in a cast to be on the safe side. Before leaving for Borneo the cast was taken off and a support cast (Velcro type) was used. The student did however have pain in her arm that was significantly uncomfortable. Determined to hike the trail we visited doctor ‘Yogi’ at the local hospital and got another x-ray (still nothing) he put another cast put on to give the arm some support and protection, suggesting it may be a form of tendinitis. Should I have let her go? She was fit enough, determined and not to mention stubborn enough to do the trek, I felt we should let her try it. Leaving her behind would use up one of my assistant teachers who may be needed on the mountain. To top the list of mysterious injuries we also had another sprain or strain that was causing some discomfort to another students ankle, again with no idea where the injury happened. Another tough, motivated girl, we went to get advice from Dr ‘Yogi’ he said it should be allright if we wrap it and have anti-inflamatory’s on hand for any pain or further swelling. Not ideal, two of the team are below fitness before we even start. My thought was that if the doc’s at the hospital gave the OK, if the student gave the OK and if we had a contingency to to get them down if it was too tough we should all be OK. These students had been saving for 18 months to go on this trip, they weren’t about to quit because of what they thought was a simple ache or pain, this fighting spirit has probably got a lot of mountaineers to the top, unfortunately it has probably also cause a few not to reach the top, permanently! As a leader you make the decisions, weigh up the pros and cons, your responsibilities to the team, their parents and the company you work for. My decision was to give it a go, we would monitor the students, take it easy and see how it went, my thought was that by the end of day one I would know whether they would or would not manage the climb.

It was a tough climb, by the time we made it to the flower garden (our preferred camp-site for day 2) a storm was rolling in and as you can see from the pictures it was not an ideal spot to be putting up a tent in a full on lightening storm. Already tired and now getting cold from the hail that was starting to fall we pushed on another two hours, dropping down and then heading back up to the emergency shelter. A leaking collection of mud, unfinished bunks, aluminium sheets and rats, but still shelter, and with some imaginative use of tent flysheets we kept dry. The storm and high winds lasted for two days. By that time we’d made friends with the rats and quiet liked our little shelter. A break in the weather, a quick dash for the summit and then back to the shelter for an early start the next day. This proved painful for the strained ankle injury but a samsplint for support, and some strapping got her down. The student with the arm in plaster coped well, not sure if she ‘enjoyed’ the trek but was certainly glad she’d done it. Mission accomplished, everyone made it, no real dramas.