Smokey the Grumpy Monkey

3/3-8/16

Wow what a great place we are in currently. Jira’s Homestay continues to be over the top with their hospitality and the climbing has entertained both Austin and I.  It’s funny how you quickly find yourself a routine after staying put for a few days. Our’s is a leisurely morning where we order coffee, breakfast, and lunch all at once. Our host packs up our lunch in tubber-ware as we sip coffee and talk with other climbers about their plans for the day. Everyones day rotates around running away from the sun. You quickly learn what walls get covered by the shade and when. 

Jira's delicious food

For us, we usually have a goal or a project for each climb spot we go to. After pushing ourselves both physically and mentally for the past 3 months, both of our nerves are shot. Having control over your fear and anxiety level is a huge component to climbing that is often overlooked by bystanders. Finding a climb that pushes my mental game and ability feels…well it’s just not going to happen. So, we both agreed that our goal should be falling back in love with climbing. It’s not that we fell out of love, its just that pushing our limit so much lately has changed the way we have viewed the sport. While here, we simply want to get to the top of climbs, having fun along the way with out over coming fear and anxiety. 

 We have been sticking to the 5c to 6a+ (5.9-5.10b) range and it’s been great. Crazy Horse has some cool approaches and climb spots. My personal favorite has been Morning Glory a 6a+ in windy cave. To get there you have to find a hole at the bottom of another crag, where there was a cold breeze blowing out. We hesitated at the entrance, enjoying the feeling of natural air conditioning and to asses the dark abyss that we had to squeeze through. We both aren’t the biggest fans of caving so after a deep breath, I squeezed under a dark lip of rock, down a slick tube. After my head cleared the low rock, the floor of the cave was dimly light by a faraway light source. It was an easy slide down to the floor. We then headed through another small tunnel towards the light source. The tunnel opened to a huge room with two beams of light dramatically lighting the walls of the cave. One beam lit up our climb perfectly while the other shown straight down at the top of the climb. The temperature was also dramatically cooler and perfect for climbing in. We both led the route and had an awesome view of the small cave room at the anchors. 

Windy Cave

Austin’s favorite spot has been the other cave, Anxiety Crisis, in which you can also climb in. At the bottom of the cave there are several easier routes that are all very enjoyable and towards the top there are several multi-pitch routes that traverse the roof, full stalactites and tufa formations. The cave is much bigger than Windy Cave but just as cool, literally speaking. The top opens up allowing plenty of light to come in so that there is no issues seeing the rock when climbing.

Checking out our character bike

So far we have taken one full rest day to explore Mae On. Jira’s has three character motor bikes that we are free to use. None of them have front brakes and being able to switch out of third gear is not a guarantee. They are reliable enough to take you the 2km up the road to the market and 7-11. We decided to take one on a great adventure to the Muang On Cave just a bit further up the road. Struggling between 1st and 2nd as we climbed the hill to the entrance, the bike slowly made her way to the cave entrance successfully. The cave was 20 bahts to get in and well worth it. It was one of the most developed caves we have ever been in, with lights lining the walls and cement stair cases to get you through the caverns. There were a lot of small shrines around various cave features, a huge resting Buddha statue, and the biggest stalagmite I have ever seen.

  

Muang On Cave

Outside of the cave, their was a trail that takes you up to a shrine on the summit of the mountain. We made our way up but came to a road block as 2 macaques (monkeys) were posted up on a fallen tree across the trail. When we first came upon them, of course we thought, “Oh, how cute.” That mind set quickly changed as we tried to step past them and they both bared their teeth while hunching back, ready to pounce. You do not want to get bitten by a macaque or any other monkey in Asia, as they are known to carry a range of diseases. We quickly retreated and waited for them to calm down, but every time we tried to sneak by, they reared back at us again. We had to cut into the woods and make a big ‘U’ around them to continue up the trail.

Burning around the Shrine

 As we made our way to the top, the smell of fire grew.The peak where a buddha shrine was located was covered in a small brush fire. When we came to the peak, a monk was up there as well, looking at the creeping flames. He spoke a bit of english with us as he snapped some shots of the fire. He did not seem to alarmed by the flames. In the states if we had come upon this site, we would of immediately turned around and called the fire department. But we are on vacation!  So we stayed on top, talked with the monk, and walked around the flames. 

That night, we could see from Jira’s the fire burning on the mountain side underneath Crazy Horse Crag. We asked our host about it in the morning and she did not seem surprised by the fires. They are intentionally set and let burn through out the land. The next morning, a lot of the climbing spots had burnt ash at the base. A few trees were still cracking and smoldering with small flames. Coming from California where fires are a serious problem, it was a bit surreal casually climbing in a smokey forest. 

We have a few more days left here at Jira’s. So far we are doing a good job at meeting our goal of taking it easy and finding chill climbs. From here we are headed up north the Pai! You will be hearing from us then!