climber.me

This is a short guide to beginner/intermediate rock climbing on the Phra Nang Peninsula in Thailand. It contains what I think are some of the best walls for climbing in the 5.8 to 5.10d range. The Phra Nang Peninsula is located about an hour from Krabi in southern Thailand. There is also good climbing in northern Thailand, but this area is more densely packed with climbs right on an exotic beach-lined peninsula. For more info on how to get to the peninsula and a more complete climbing route list, get Sam Lightner Jr.’s book. You can also pick up Wee’s climbing guide when you get there.

Note: The info here could get out of date as new climbs are put up, holds break, etc. Make sure to get fully informed before you get on any climbs. In general, I also only mention climbs that get 2+ stars in the guide books, so all numbers should be considered a lower bound of what’s actually at the wall.

Btw, if you don’t lead or only lead 5.8/5.9 then I would definitely recommend taking a climbing course on the peninsula and hiring a rope gun guide to put up routes for you. It’s sort of pricey, but also an effective way to top rope harder routes safely. Remember, a trip to the hospital in Thailand is _not_ recommended! If you lead 10a/b then just start out easy to get used to the limestone. Also, it’s not hard to find solid climbers who need a belay, just make sure they have decent belay skills for when you’re on the rock.

Map of the peninsula:

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Staying there
If you’re going to the peninsula primarily to climb, then definitely try to stay on Tonsai beach. West Railay is expensive and Easy Railay is a bit far away from the walls. Tonsai is also where most of the other climbers stay, so it’s the place to find climbing partners and get all your beta. You can also find accommodations online, check Krabi Hotels for more information.

Gear
If you bring your own sport climbing gear then it will be much easier to find a belay partner (if you need one). You’ll need shoes, a harness with chalk bag, 15-20 quickdraws, belay/rappel device on a locking biner, a 60m rope and a helmet. If you don’t have a rope and quickdraws then you’ll be able to climb, but might have to wait longer on Tonsai in the morning to meet someone.

The Walls:

• Diamond Cave has the biggest collection of 5.8’s on the peninsula (~4). As such, the guides often come to this wall and dominate all the easy climbs. The wall doesn’t get much sun, though, so showing up at lunch while the classes are breaking works well. There are also at least 2 10a’s, 2 10b’s, 2 10c’s and a 10d
• Muay Thai and 1-2-3 Walls are so close together that they’re really just one place. The guides also come to these walls, so plan accordingly. No much sun hits here either, so climb whenever. There are at least 2 5.8’s, 4 5.9’s, 1 10a, 4 10b’s and 4 10c’s, not to mention a ton of harder climbs. Don’t miss the classic Massage Secret (10b). I also enjoyed We Sad (10b) which has a tough but fun no feet start up a tufa hanging down from above.
  
  Climbers at 1-2-3 Wall
• Fire Wall has a climb that everyone must do: Groove Tube. It’s an amazing 10a up a vertical half pipe full of jugs. The optional tunnelling start is unique and adds to the experience. The wall gets morning sun and doesn’t have too many easy climbs (2 10a’s, 2 10c’s, 1 10d), but is close to the Melting Wall.
  
  
  Me tunnelling up Groove Tube (5.10a) on the Fire Wall
• Thaiwand Wall has a bunch of great single pitch climbs at the base of this impressive monolith. It doesn’t get much sun either. There is 1 5.8, 2 10bs, 2 10c’s, and 2 10d’s. The routes on the far right have you traverse out over the water for some great exposure from the get-go. Also, make sure to make your way through the Thaiwand itself - it’s hollow! If you come from the other side, then you rappel down the 5.8 on your way out.
  
  Nick and Morris anchoring in at the base of Thaiwand Wall - instant exposure above the water!
• Melting Wall is close to the Fire Wall and also only gets morning sun. It has 1 5.9, 1 10a, and 2 10c’s. Combined with Fire Wall, it makes for a good outing.
• Cobra Wall is primarily a low tide wall unless you’re up for wading a good distance. It gets morning sun and has a bunch of low 10s - 1 10a, and 3 10b’s. The climbs here are generally really good and there’s also a 5-star 11a if you’re feeling strong.
• Eagle Wall is a nice wall close to a small secluded beach on the peninsula. There is 1 10a, 1 10b, and 2 10c’s along with a bunch of harder climbs, including a few high quality 11a’s.

This guide should last you about a week on the peninsula. Deep water soloing for a day is great too. If you’re there for longer, then take a look in the guide books. They’re great and will point the way to many more high quality climbs in the 5.8 to 10d range and up. Have fun!

Snake Dike (5.7R). Perhaps it should be renamed Snake Dhike. The ‘H’ is most definitely not silent.

On June 7, 2008 Maria and I woke up at 3:45am in the Upper Pines campground after a nice 4 hour nap and were hiking by 4:15am. It was dark as hell until a little after 5 and doing the Mist Trail in the cool early morning was not the most enjoyable experience. But we made it up there and then past Nevada falls to the turn off to the base of the climb. Luckily we found the turn off easily. Like the SuperTopo saysonce you pass Libery Cap, about 3/4 of a mile past Nevada falls a climbers trail heads off left from the main trail. Just keep an eye out for feint footsteps heading up the short hill. Once you’re over the hill the trail becomes more defined past Lost Lake until you get near the slabs. We followed the base of the slabs up to the right until we found a decent 4th class traverses up to the left and found a trail up the sandy slope to the base of the climb. It was 8:15am when we got to the base and there was only one party ahead of us. Within 20 minutes we were climbing and within 30 minutes there were 4 other parties behind us, with more to arrive soon after. My only advice is suck it up and get to the base early!

The climb

Me looking frumpy at the base

The first pitch starts with no protection on 4th class rock for about 60 feet. Then you place a single smallish cam in a crack, down climb 10 feet and traverse left for about fifteen through 5.7 friction until your next placement. For me, this was the sketchiest, but not most difficult part of the climb. Once you’re through that the rest of the pitch is easy to the bolts. We linked the second pitch and part of the third through the next two 5.7 parts of the climb. The hardest part for me was the last 5.7 traversing friction move up and left past a bolt. I’m glad I had recently followed on Crest Jewel, but it was still psychologically challenging being on lead. I set up a belay once I reached the bolts at the start of the dike. At this point you’re past the toughest sections on the route, but have to be ready for extreme runout on easy terran for the rest of the climb. The dike is really, really awesome. Great features always give you a hold when you need it and with 1 to 2 bolts per pitch you can just cruise in a good rhythm. Since we belayed at the start of the dike instead of climbing up, we were slightly off the normal belay route and 2 pitches up I reached the end of the rope with the anchors about 15 feet up. Luckily, Maria and I had done this before while linking pitches on Yankee Clipper in El Potrero Chico, so she quickly broke down the belay and we started simul-climbing for 15 feet with 2 or so pieces of protection between us. The rest of the climb was easy and fun and I got the pleasure of leading the whole climb. I guess this makes up for me following all of Crest Jewel + Royal Arches (thanks Nathan!).

The end of the climb isn’t described so well in the SuperTopo book. The topo makes it look like you should head up and right after the last pitch, but you need to be careful to not go too far to the right. We ended up setting up a few more marginal belays after the last pitch in the topo to make sure we were headed in the right direction. There’s a steep vertical section of rock that you’ll see and you need to go to the left around that. After that we saw a tree and headed towards that. It’s hard to judge distance in the sea of granite; when we saw the tree i figured it was about 150 feet away, but it turned out to be twice that. From there we meandered up, tied together short. Just pick the lowest angle route you can find and follow that for about twenty minutes to half an hour. Walking up the rest of half dome is otherworldly and a cool experience on its own.

The top

When we reached the top, it was about 2:30pm. We called our friends who had started hiking up the Half Dome trail about an hour after us and they had just reached the top of the cables. Talk about great timing! We all hung out at the top for an hour or so before trudging down the 8.5 miles back to the campground. A few big wallers topped out on the Northwest Face while we were up there and of course a thousand other people too. Somehow a marmot also made it up there. The question is, did he take the cables or the dike route?

The Marmot: lost or cornering the Food Scraps Market at the top of Half Dome?

The descent

This part I could have done without, but it’s all part of the snake dhike extravaganza. The cables were nasty congested and that part alone took us about 45 minutes. The early start was getting to us, but another snickers or two did us good and we kept our pace up. We got back to the campground at 7:30 and were at Degnan’s Pizza Loft by 8. Another successful day!

Maria and I have been running through The Road to the Nose by Chris McNamara (get it here) which is essentially a twelve step program for anyone to train to climb the Nose on El Capitan. Along the way, we have now done the first pitch of three climbs on El Capitan: Pacific Ocean Wall, North America Wall and Dihedral Wall. We did them in that order and I’d recommend that to anyone getting into aid climbing. It’s really amazing to climb at the base of El Capitan. Up close you get a totally different perspective of what the big stone is all about. The most surprising aspect is how overhanging it is. The lines look intimidating yet call to be climbed - very inspiring!

Pacific Ocean Wall: Pitch 1

Maria looking down from the top of the pitch

The first pitch of P.O. Wall starts out with a little dirty free climbing and then a short traverse over to a nice crack system with good placements. About halfway up the pitch there was a loose block that I hooked around (picture here). At the top of the pitch there were a few fixed pieces that made things easier. Overall the placements were straightforward, but with enough variation to make things fun as a first aid lead.

North America Wall: Pitch 1

Me under the roof. The anchor is about 15 feet above.

The first pitch of North America Wall ascends an interesting corner with three vertical ascending cracks towards a square five foot roof. We started climbing the leftmost crack, which eventually curves towards the middle crack in the corner. Switching to the middle crack wasn’t too difficult, but the middle crack was a bit grassy and flared. It took small cams and offset cams could have been used well here. At this point I had already placed a ton of gear and was running low. Looking up, I realized that I was only halfway there and definitely wouldn’t have enough gear for the whole pitch. I should have back cleaned at least 6 pieces along the way, but instead had to set up a crappy anchor in the flaring crack with a few cams and lower to clean a bunch of placements. The middle crack continues until you reach the roof, which is easily traversed along the left side using a fixed nut and then a #1 or #2 cam around the lip. After the roof the crack continues for about 15 more feet until you reach far right to the anchors. Again, Maria and I both led and cleaned this.

Dihedral Wall: Pitch 1

Me hooking after the 3rd class ramp

I got a few Fish hooks off eBay right before this climb and pulled them out right away. They were extremely useful and it’s hard to believe how difficult they are to find. Too bad that Black Diamond doesn’t make larger hooks. Dihedral Wall looks like an amazing climb. The first five pitches ascend a striking left angling dihedral to a triangular roof. Farther up the the dihedral continues until reaching Thanksgiving ledge after 21 pitches. The first pitch is a bit more adventurous than the pitches we had done before. It’s a bit grassy and awkward down low, with some sections probably easier to free climb, but with crappy protection if you do. I used the hooks a lot and found myself doing semi-free moves to get through it. The same goes for near the top of the pitch where it becomes low angle until the spacious belay ledge. The second pitch looks like an amazing crack, but we didn’t have enough time to do it this trip since we both led pitch 1 and were also practicing hauling it.

What’s next?

Now that we have a bunch of single pitches of aid under our belt (and it’s getting annoying to not reach the top of anything), we’re planning on doing some longer multi-pitch aid climbs. El Cap Tree looks okay, but I think we will go for either the Prow or South Face of Washington Column next. We practiced hauling on the Dihedral Wall and learned the pains of humping our loads to the base of a climb. It’ll be a big step up to jump on Washington Column, but we’re ready for an adventure.

When I go on vacation, I like to travel and go climbing. It was surprisingly hard for me to find a
list of good climbing destinations outside the US, so I put one together here. This list covers what I think are the best overall climbing destinations that are accessible to beginner to intermediate climbers and make for an overall great vacation with good non-climbing options nearby. I’ve also listed the best times to go to each place based on local weather because you don’t want to be rained out or cooking in the heat if you only have a few weeks away each year. If you know of any other top climbing vacations, then comment!

1. Phra Nang Peninsula, Thailand - Amazing sport climbing in a tropical paradise (November to March). Get the guide
2. Squamish, BC - Loads and loads of crack climbing on solid granite with plenty of bouldering, sport and big wall adventures around (June to September).
3. El Potrero Chico, Mexico - 500+ sport climbs including long multipitch sport classics a short flight from the US (November to March). More info
4. Bariloche, Argentina - From high mountain cracks to overhung sport climbing, this South American climbing hub deserves more attention (November to March).
5. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - This up and coming sport climbing haven is starting to compete with Thailand for attention in the Southeast Asian climbing circuit, but why choose when you can hit both (November to March).
6. Kalymnos, Greece - Sport climbing and bouldering in Mediterranean heaven. Island hopping and Turkish adventure opportunities abound as well (Spring and Fall).
7. Arco, Italy - Literally thousands of sport climbs in the foothills of the Alps provide for a memorable trip to Italy (Spring and Fall).
8. Western Cape, South Africa - Table Mountain offers superb sandstone trad climbing, while the Rocklands is a top bouldering destination (Spring and Fall).
9. Frankenjura, Germany - A top sport climbing destination in Europe with some good bouldering options too. Nice B&B’s close to the crag make for a super cushy vacation (Spring through Fall).
   
10. Fontainebleau, France - Although only a bouldering destination, the nicely labeled problem circuits make this a top choice for a relaxed climbing vacation not too far from Paris(Spring and Fall).

Limestone goodness in Thailand

Pitch 6 of Dope Ninja (5.10b), El Potrero Chico

Laybacking Penny Lane (5.9) at Squamish

Obviously there are tons more places to climb in the world, but if you start here, I guarantee you’ll have a good time.

On Saturday May 31 this year, Nathan and I woke up at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning (after going to bed at midnight) and made the 45 minute drive from Hardin Flat to Yosemite Valley. Parking at the Ahwahnee hotel, we geared up, taking a light trad rack and each with a small backpack full of windbreakers, 4 king-size snickers bars, fruit rollups, string cheese and water. One 60m rope meant lightness but no retreating. We did the quick approach and started climbing just as it started getting light at 5:30am. The first pitch starts with a slick angled chimney and was my first chimney experience. Not bad, just a full body experience!

Nathan leading up the 5.6 chimney on pitch 1

We were simulclimbing nearly everything, so after the first pitch things just kept going. It’s easy climbing with short sections of 5.6 or 5.7 moves. At one point, in another groovy chimney section the nozzle of my camelbak slid off and water started gushing out of it and all over the wall and me. I put the tube in my mouth, but the water kept coming! Nathan was fully extended at the other end of the rope, so we both had to downclimb about 10 feet so I could retrieve the nozzle. Luckily it hadn’t dropped any farther. The simul -climbing made things a little more interesting there.

After about 6 pitches worth, we hit a stellar 5.6 crack that went for 30-45 feet. Definitely one of the highlights of Royal Arches. The other memorable part was, of course, the pendulum to skip the 10b traverse move.

Looking past the pendulum. You swing and mantle the flake in the middle bottom.

We made it up to the top of Royal arches at 8am, after only 2.5 hours! Both of us were surprised that we got through it so fast - belays are sloooowww. The early start was key, as we didn’t see anyone else on the route, but we heard later that there were at least 6-10 parties on it.

Looking down from the top of Royal Arches.

However, we weren’t through the adventure. We still had to do Crest Jewel, a 5-star 10a slab climb up to the top of North Dome. That, and the approach to the start of Crest Jewel from Royal Arches. My only advice is don’t turn left towards the dome too early. We ended up crawling through the thickest manzanita, only to realize that we had gone too high.

Manzanita Hell!

Finally, we got to the start of the climb and it was 11. There was a party climbing up the 10d direct start, so we waited for them to cruise by (impressive) and Nathan started leading out. I should mention that I haven’t done much slab climbing. Starting on Crest Jewel, even on top rope was a continuous adventure. The runouts were often long and traversing on 5.8 terrain. At one point, Nathan realized he had clipped into an old bolt (marked in the ST guide) and was 30 feet off route. He kept it together and instead of down climbing to get back on route, he did a heady traverse up and left to the anchors, not able to clip any more bolts. Wowsa.

Nathan running it out

We did Crest Jewel in 9 pitches and got to the top at 4:30. Then it was only a short hike down to the North Dome Gully trail. We found the start of the trail easily and didn’t have any problems staying on the trail, but it was very exposed, especially at the 4th class traverse with a cliff below you. It’s a good idea to do this trail with a light pack and get to know it before you jump on Washington Column and come down with a haul bag and heavy rack.

At 7pm we made it to the valley floor and nearly bumped into a baby bear cub and mama bear. They weren’t more than 100 feet away from us and luckily they just lumbered off into the woods. Making a b-line for Degnan’s Pizza Loft, we ate well and talked about the climb. This day was full of firsts for me - first pendulum, first simul-climbing, first chimney - awesome.

The next day we took it easier. I led pitch 1 of Jamcrack (5.7); Nathan led pitch 2 (5.9). Then I led Churchbowl Lieback (5.8) and Nathan led Highway Star (5.10a). Thoroughly spent, we headed back to the city after one of my favorite climbing weekends ever.