The Other Thailand

Leave behind Thailand's farang-packed Tonsai, and you'll discover Crazy Horse, a quiet crag that's redefining sustainable tourism in Asia.

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Deep within the sultry bamboo forests of the Mae On Valley, northern Thailand, looms an outcrop of golden-hued, blackstreaked limestone. Beneath it in the cool shade, you’ll likely find a man — Loong Nan, 53 — hammering away at bamboo huts, painting trail signs, or sweeping paths. This industrious Thai is the busdriving, trail-building, hut-constructing “guardian” of Crazy Horse Buttress. His tireless work ethic has prompted some to joke, “If everyone were like Loong Nan, communism could’ve worked.”

Crazy Horse Buttress rises above rice paddies 25 miles from the culturally vibrant city Chiang Mai. Named for its principal formation’s striking resemblance to an equine head, Crazy Horse comprises a cluster of 15 quiet cliffs first climbed in 1998 and now boasting 97 single-pitch and 15 multi-pitch routes. Spanning 5.6 to 5.13c, the climbs tackle everything from technical slabs, to overhanging tufas, to multi-chambered, stalactite-dripping caves — not to mention the wealth of untapped rock.

However, the cliff’s true essence lies in the tight-knit community of locals and foreigners who’ve developed it. With an emphasis on social and ecological sustainability, the motley Crazy Horse crew has endeavored to keep this a quality destination for the long haul. In fact, many climbers now hold up Crazy Horse as a case study on how climbing tourism can positively affect a foreign community. Turns out, one of the most important factors is for the locals to come to love climbing, too.

WELCOME TO CRAZY HORSE
In the dirt parking lot below the crag, open-air bamboo huts shade climbers relaxing on mats and chatting, monkeys swinging in the trees above. Bamboo handrails line the trails, and hand-painted signs point the way to the 15 cliffs, each with its specific style. To find solitude, you might head off to tug pockets at the Buddha Buttress or the new Jai Wall; or for social climbing, there’s the Anthill, Crazy Horse’s slightly overhanging, superlative hard-person’s cliff. Meanwhile, the Air Con Wall, a short, pocketed power cliff named for the cool breeze that blows from a neighboring cave, offers respite from the heat.

As a Coloradan vacationing here for three weeks in 2008, I found Chiang Mai’s lush forest and humid air a soothing escape. Not so soothing — at least to my ego — was the climbing. After days watching my traveling companion, Colorado pro climber Jonathan Siegrist, tear up the crag, I was still adjusting to Crazy Horse’s pumpy, 3-d style. My learning curve was painfully steep, but I consoled myself on the slabby, more technical cliffs.

My pumped arms also gave me ample time to wander the trail network, looking for monkeys and noticing the developers’ attention to detail. Take the bamboo planks used to keep ropes out of the fine, grey dirt below the routes. Much of this is the work of Loong Nan, who once built an arching bamboo trellis to mark the Crazy Horse entrance only later to add a matching exit after dreaming he was trapped at the crag.