"We hiked from national park campsite at Kiew Lom to the summit of Thailand's 2nd highest mountain, Doi Pha Hom Pok (2285m), and back. The trail is marked by 7 information boards. We walked up in the dark, starting at 5am, to be on the summit for the sunrise at 6:30am. Most people leave earlier than that. It would also make a good sunset summit, descending afterwards in the dark. The whole walk can be done in around 4 hours including summit time. There are nice views to the west over the mountains of Myanmar, and over north Thailand to the east. We saw some interesting flora but no fauna. There were about 15 people on the summit when we arrived. The Kiew Lom campsite is good. A 4-wheel drive vehicle is needed for the drive up to there. The westerly checkpoint near Fang would not let us in with our Nissan X-Trail, saying it was too low, and we should buy a trip in their pickup taxi, however the easterly checkpoint near Mae Sao let us in. There is a 2nd fine campsite nearby called หน่วยพิทักษ์อุทยานแห่งชาติที่ ดป.4 (Little House on the Prairie Project) that you can find in Google Earth. Our video log of the trip is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-noK9UVWTk" — nickhope • Dec 9, 2016

"Tried to reach the mountain via a new route, following the river down the west slope upstreams till the peak and ascend from there. It'd be perfectly plausible, though i did not count the time well. I was counting on 2-3 days to the peak, though after 2 days we were only about half the way, running out of food. We needed to turn back again and went up the normal route after all. Full trip report + map: http://dimitriosfan.com/2016/02/04/deep-into-the-jungle-doi-pha-hom-pok/" — DimitriosFan • Jan 25, 2016

"Did the mountain alone in a short two day trip. Started in early afternoon from Chiang Dao, camped before the peak and summited by sunrise. Very beautiful mountain. Plateau in between the ridges quite unique. Guide was supposedly mandatory, though the guards at the park's entrance showed no objection to let pass myself. Full trip report + map: http://dimitriosfan.com/2016/02/02/doi-chiang-dao-thailands-third-highest-mountain/" — DimitriosFan • Jan 20, 2016

"Thailand's 3rd highest mountain, north of Chiang Mai. We stayed at the Chiang Dao national park headquarters, camping on the floor of their meeting room. We were driven to Den Ya Kat by 4WD and we had to hire a porter via the national park office. On the first day we hiked up to the huge campsite, "Ao Salung" below the summit. We set up camp there then hiked up to the summit of Doi Luang Chiang Dao for the sunrise. This is a very popular "bucket list" hike for a lot of Thais. We did it on a weekend in January and there were about 300 people up the mountain, even though I've heard it's supposed to be limited to 150. Many of the hikers seemed ill-prepared and in inappropriate footwear. The summit was a photo-frenzy, the "money shot" being holding the Thai flag. Nevertheless it was fun, and a good community spirit, but go mid-week if you want to avoid the crowds. The following morning we hiked in the dark up to Kew Lom Tai for the sunrise. Then we packed up camp, hiked down to Pang Wua where we were picked up and driven back to the national park office. We wanted to do this independently but it would be very difficult to do so. The national park and commercial trekking com..." — nickhope • Jan 16, 2016

"Left Chiang Mai very early as we needed to get a taxi to the park before taking the plane back to Bangkok. The taxi driver gave us a quick tour pointing out some of the park before parking in a car park, this was 50 metres from the top of the mountain. " — steverd • May 24, 2006