MastaMax
Senior Member
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Bikes
- 19 ktm 300tpi 6 days / 15 Yamaha YZ250F / 08 Husky 450SMR / 13 ER6N / 13 KTM 300XCW(sold)
AlexUSA and myself had a great experience on the day before, mapping 2 new trails (see http://rideasia.net/forum/two-unmapped-incomplete-singletracks-up-doi-suthep-t1162.html ) so we decided to try it again on Sunday.
Alex probably has the gpx track so he'll post it later.
We started behind the queen's garden, the trail that is called the "last man standing" I think? It starts with a pretty steep uphill and some more nice single track, good as a starter.
Then we joined what should have been a dirt road but it appears like it's concrete, and we wanted more dirt, so we looked around for any trails. We then found a small single track uphill, that never stopped going steep up. Very tiring but we didn't get blocked a single time so had a lot of fun. We went up and up until joining what seems to be a bike downhill trail (again, see the day before's report). From there it started to get though and harder as the bushes get thicker and more roots on the steep track.
At 5pm, about to connect to the road (about 400m left) it started to get too steep and we didn't want to insist too much, thinking going down would be a wiser decision. So we turned around. Half way through, the trail started to get very hard to see as there is a lot of overgrowth on the tiny trail. Alex took a wrong turn east and I took a wrong turn west...
A bit later we called each other and Alex was back on trail but I couldn't find the trail and found myself in a dead end to steep to go back up and dry riverbeds on both sides with 3-4m cliffs. After assessing the situation as calmly as possible (no more water, out of battery, lost and in the dark with no light) I decided to leave the bike and climb my way back, if I could find it... (I luckily marked the bike on my crap gps-phone before it went off). After 2 hours of crawling through a thick jungle with ravines and trees with 20cm spikes! in the pitch dark, so thirsty I had to dry a bit of water from a river, I connected on the dirt road! Have to say watching the man vs wild series helped me out no to stress too much and injure myself in one of the big ditches all over the place
Anyways, at 11:30pm I made it home thanks to my mechanic who picked me up at the queen's garden.
It then took him 2 days to get the bike back on the road (1 day to find the bike, Thai people are not pros at using GPS). I'm very glad he and 4 others could bring the bike back on the road after long hours of effort!
-> my advice: Track is awesome, but when going downhill stop every few hundreds of meters to check you're on the right trail!
Here is an approximate picture of the events :
Alex probably has the gpx track so he'll post it later.
We started behind the queen's garden, the trail that is called the "last man standing" I think? It starts with a pretty steep uphill and some more nice single track, good as a starter.
Then we joined what should have been a dirt road but it appears like it's concrete, and we wanted more dirt, so we looked around for any trails. We then found a small single track uphill, that never stopped going steep up. Very tiring but we didn't get blocked a single time so had a lot of fun. We went up and up until joining what seems to be a bike downhill trail (again, see the day before's report). From there it started to get though and harder as the bushes get thicker and more roots on the steep track.
At 5pm, about to connect to the road (about 400m left) it started to get too steep and we didn't want to insist too much, thinking going down would be a wiser decision. So we turned around. Half way through, the trail started to get very hard to see as there is a lot of overgrowth on the tiny trail. Alex took a wrong turn east and I took a wrong turn west...
A bit later we called each other and Alex was back on trail but I couldn't find the trail and found myself in a dead end to steep to go back up and dry riverbeds on both sides with 3-4m cliffs. After assessing the situation as calmly as possible (no more water, out of battery, lost and in the dark with no light) I decided to leave the bike and climb my way back, if I could find it... (I luckily marked the bike on my crap gps-phone before it went off). After 2 hours of crawling through a thick jungle with ravines and trees with 20cm spikes! in the pitch dark, so thirsty I had to dry a bit of water from a river, I connected on the dirt road! Have to say watching the man vs wild series helped me out no to stress too much and injure myself in one of the big ditches all over the place
Anyways, at 11:30pm I made it home thanks to my mechanic who picked me up at the queen's garden.
It then took him 2 days to get the bike back on the road (1 day to find the bike, Thai people are not pros at using GPS). I'm very glad he and 4 others could bring the bike back on the road after long hours of effort!
-> my advice: Track is awesome, but when going downhill stop every few hundreds of meters to check you're on the right trail!
Here is an approximate picture of the events :
