20 June 2010 Miki Survival Camp, Kinabalu Park, Sabah, Malaysia

Hi all,

This week we were finally able to leave for our camping trip. We were supposed to be camping for 9 days, but it ended up being only about 7 due to some crazy weather. Our goal was to survey three sites for three nights each--Miki Camp at about 900 m, Sungei (the Malay word for river) Kinataki at about 1600 m, and Marei Parei at about 1750 m. Each of these elevations, and two of these exact sites, were first surveyed for frogs in 1929, and we're replicating the earlier methods as best we can in order to determine whether abundance and diversity has changed, and whether the elevational distributions of these frogs has shifted with climate change.

We spend out first night at a "survival camp" run by a local fellow, and then camped next to the Sungei Kinataki starting on our 2nd night. Field camps are different everywhere you go, depending on the type of work you're doing. If you're going to be at a site for some time, you might make a sleeping platform (to keep you off of the wet ground) and a covered specimen processing area with a table, in addition to a cooking and dining area. Since we were only going to be there for a few nights and we weren’t going to be making any specimens, we kept our camp pretty simple with a few tents and a tarp-covered cooking/eating area. This particular river valley is very steep, so there isn’t much flat area next to the river—which made finding a tent spot a bit of a challenge. The trail comes almost 150 m straight down into the river on one side (so forget about camping on that side), and on the other side there is about 20 feet of gentle slope before it starts going straight up again. Unfortunately, Samantha (my field assistant) and I weren’t as adept at flattening our tent site as our Malay friends were, so while Paul made himself a level area covered with big soft leaves, almost like a gorilla nest on which to put his tent, Samantha and I hurried to put our tent on semi-level ground and ended up sleeping on various roots and trying to contort our bodies into comfortable positions for three nights. Next time, I’m copying Paul.

The frogging on the Kinataki was quite good, but on the afternoon of the 2nd day there, it started to rain. Around 2pm Samantha and I retired to our tent to try to stay warm and dry, and when we emerged around 4:30 to start our hike up to Marei Parei, the river had become a raging maniac which was threatening to take our kitchen area away from us! Paul (our Sabah Parks counterpart), our guide Maurice, porter Liun, Samantha and I all spent the next hour nervously watching the river inch its way towards our tents. We left Liun to watch the camp and rescue our gear if necessary while the rest of us went up for the survey, and returned several rainy hours later to find the river within about 3 feet of the lowest tent (Paul’s). I have only seen a river in flood a couple of times, and never from such a close, precarious distance. The noise level is astounding—I literally couldn’t hear Samantha speaking to me from 2 feet away if she was using a normal speaking voice. I knew that we weren’t in any real danger and that the worst case scenario would mean packing up our tents and gear in the rain and making camp at Marei Parei which is far outside of the flood plain, but it was nerve-wracking to go into our tent not knowing whether we would be staying the night or making a quick escape. Around midnight the river finally started to subside and I was able to sleep relatively soundly. Or as soundly as I could given the fact that my sleeping bag was wet, I was cold, and there were roots poking me in the back and shoulders. I was definitely happy to return to the Miki Camp a few days later to sleep on a flat sleeping platform!

We have a few more days of this camping trip before heading back to park headquarters. I’m looking forward to doing some call recording this week, and to seeing what other species we can find. Hope you are all well—looking forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,


Jen