Picture credit Jussi Heinonen.
We arrived back in Northen Thailand in Chang Mai. A city of leafy streets and quiet cafes. We were headed though to Crazy Horse Butress and the climbing on offer. It was nice to stay static for 5 days after a lot of travelling. We stayed in a family run teak built hotel. We had a huge room which as usual Liz managed to make very small by spreading her stuff over every available surface. She did leave me half a chair to use though.
The crag was about 30 minutes out of town so we went in a pick up from the local climbing shop with other climbers both independent and on courses. With lunch and water re-fills it was 5 quid a day. We shared over a few days with Finnish Geologists, French Rope Access Workers and Melbourne health policy writers, plus a few weird Americans.
The climbing was good, about 10 seperate areas to choose from and quiet. The facilities were great, shelters to hide from the sun, good loos, trails through the bamboo forests and a tame chicken to play with! No route we tried had any polish and certainly no queing up. I think this was my favourite place to climb as it was mostly in the shade and quiet. You made it back to town and could have a pleasant night with plenty of choice over what to do though I mostly ate and slept. We had 3 days here which if you climb the lower grades is probably enough. If you climb hard you should have been here to lead me up tougher routes! I really enjoyed the sport climbing but am still either you get up or you don't. All this working a 20m route for an hour is just not my bag and not good for your belayers neck! Coming back from the crag and having a Thai massage for an hour at the end of the day is great though. The amount of cracking and creaking I was doing though seemed to alarm the masseur more than me. I think I just mumbled climbing at them whilst I tried not to fall asleep on the table.
Greg
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