Sketchy, stoned boatmen that don’t appear on time, no water, bolt glue that doesn’t work, diving to retrieve lost bolts… A lot of work went into setting up the first sport climb on this Krabi, Thailand landmark. 

After several years of fading climbing passion, I was reignited when I encountered this limestone tower raising out of the water near Krabi, Thailand. Railay beach had become my family’s yearly x-mas vacation spot; a far cry from the Swedish cold and dark midwinter. It was not hard to lure climbing friends with families to join us. In December 2004 on the 26th I was joined on a boat trip to Pi-Pi island by my friend Henrik and his family.

Leaving Railay’s cliffs behind we passed the famous landmark “Chicken Island”. In one corner of this rocky island an almost 100 meter high limestone tower stretches up crowned by a huge lump of limestone that resembles the head of a chicken Being a climber, I couldn’t resist tempting Henrik with the thought of a route stretching all the way from the water line, over the chest, up the neck and out under the chin of the ”chicken”. He ignited on all cylinders and plans were started on how to accomplish this feat.

Our plans were brutally interrupted by the tsunami. You could say that our climbing passion saved our lives because we were on a small beach under a steep climbing wall when the tsunami hit. Thus, we were not washed away or tumbled around, but rather went riding a vertical lift 8 meters up. Safely back in Sweden with the events of the tsunami tucked away we started thinking about the awesome “chicken island” formation and it’s climbing possibilities again.