Anyways, if your wish to hike it, it is sincerely recommended that you plan for more than a day to do so. Also that you have the proper gear as the top is extremely cold. People always think that oh it won't be such a big deal. It is. The top is actually about 0-5C on a nice day. And on Mt. Fuji, there is always snow on the top. Regardless of season. Additionally, Kinabalu mountain has some generous rock edges that take a bit more than your average mountain to climb. The top is an incredible rock peak where only a rope is placed to help you hike up its face. How steep it is, I cannot attest, nor can I attest to the wind, but I know the wind at the top of some mountains in South Korea was a fierce things to behold. Therefore you might want to add more than just your average tennis shoe to the list of gear you are considering.
Mount Fuji takes about 8 hours to hike...if you are a young high school boy on a sports team, otherwise you might want to give yourself an additional few hours. As Mt Kinabalu is certainly larger, you want to account for much more time. And as it is a forest, a tropical forest, you should be no means be hiking at night. In my small bit of hiking I did, I found poisonous snakes, leeches, sinking mud pits, among many of other things that could be a lot more dangerous once the night fell. Therefore there are quite a few places to stop and refresh yourselves on your hike to the top.
Personally, I couldn't afford two days to hike up and down a mountain, nor could I carry all the hiking equipment all around with me throughout the rest of South East Asia, and therefore I stuck to the smaller trails closer to the base of the mountain, which still too me a bit of time.
As far as getting there goes, once you are in Kota Kinabalu, one of the two information center, or any hotel, or nearly anyone, can direct you to the bus terminal. Don't be fooled. It is really just a parking lot of vans. And these vans are to be interpreted as 'buses'. Anyways. Once there you will find many people trying to sell the extra seats in their cars for tourists looking to see a variety of things. And a good many of them will be for Kinabalu mountain. If you take a taxi, it will be more expensive to do, but the taxi will leave at once, whereas with a bus, they might wait around longer looking to fill the last seat or two in their car, which can really take some time. But it is cheaper. And it is what I did. I took the bus there and was dropped off at the entrance.As far as the price goes, I wan to say I paid like 15 ringit?
Now as far as getting back goes, these 'buses' certainly do make their way back. But as you might guess, their schedule is nowhere near regular. I was told that the last one of the day was around 6pm. And that was about it. There is a small parking area outside of the park entrance that also has a cafe. This is where the bus comes to pick up its returning passengers. The bus comes from another area beyond Kinabalu park and therefore already has passengers. And what exactly happens if there are more passengers than seats? I shutter to think.
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