The Inthanon '09 Expedition

On Thursday the big day arrived and my friends and I set out for Doi Inthanon. We went by different ways. Lance and a friend of his rode their bikes from Hang Dong to the entrance to the national park. The friend turned back then. He wasn't ready to try scaling Inthanon and had come along to keep Lance company on the ride of about 70 kilometers. Ben and Ian drove Ian's 4x4 to just outside the national park and left the 4x4 there. I rode my motorbike from Chiang Mai proper. We met up at the park headquarters and prepared to go for the summit. It was about 44 kilometers to the top, with a rise of 2,200 meters. That is a rise of 1.32 miles! Most of the steep slopes come in the last 16 kilometers of the ride.


The guys riding up the mountain.


Lance gives a thumbs up.

It took about 4 hours to get to the top. The steepest sections had a rise of 13%. That doesn't sound steep, but it seems vertical when you are actually doing it.

We reached the top just after 1:00 PM. I got their maybe twenty minutes ahead of the other guys. Of course, I had a slight advantage. But even I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get up some of the long stretches. My bike was definitely overheating, and driving for extended periods in first gear really isn't the best way to treat your bike. But it was the only way to do it.


Ben and Ian at the top.

Lance had taken off before I could get his picture. He had to hurry back down in order to try and ride back to Hang Dong before it got dark. Riding a bicycle on the highways of Thailand at night is daring proposition.


At the lookout point.


YOu can't really tell, but we are actually several hundred meters above the clouds in the background. We had traveled in a cloud bank most of the trip, but we broke through it on the last stretch of road.

I was going to do some birding during the day, but it just didn't work out that well. I did spend some time birding around the summit, but I was too busy photographing and stopping to drink warm coffee to do much birding. (It was cold coming up through the clouds, but the summit was much warmer, warmed by the sun.) I did manage to get three new species for my life list, including this Chestnut Tailed Minia who agreed to pose for me.





The ride down the mountain took one hour, after the ride up took four. It was actually scary whizzing down those steep, long slopes. Over all, a good time was had by all.