Doi Langka Luang Trek (Khun Chae National Park)

Doi Langka Luang



60km from Chiang Mai City, this place can easily be reached by car or rented motorbike. This general area is great for hiking with Chiang Dao and Doi Luang mountain treks in the vicinity. This mountain is also sometimes called Doi Mae Tho. The peak is 2031m which makes it the 8th highest mountain in Thailand. Fee for Khun Chae is 100 baht per foreign adult which is very cheap considering the trekking opportunities.

The national park has set up a 4-day 3-night one-way trail, starting near the HQ and finishing on a mountain road, from where they ferry you back to the start by car. The total trek length is 19km and if you have the time and prefer to trek with a guide it's your best option for exploring the national park. I think 5km per day is a little slow going so could perhaps be scaled down to 2 nights if your group was in good physical shape and the guide agreed. 1, 2 and 3 on the picture below are the 3 campsites where you spend a night each. Number 2 is Langka Luang.





Independent trekkers who aren't up for that sort of adventure and would prefer some same-day trekking could check out the loop of Doi Langka Noi - this is a very good write up with the GPS files: beautiful-chiangmai.com/hiking/doi-lanka-noi-loop/

Or they could do the 19km trek but finish at Doi Pha Ngom (the 1st campsite), and then turn around. Pha Ngom has views that are almost as good as Doi Langka's, so you wouldn't be missing too much.





There is a small nature trail called the 'Gurgling Trail' at HQ/Visitor Centre which is not great but will kill an hour and you might get lucky and find a snake or something. It follows a stream. If you are doing the mountain trek the next day then probably best to save your legs.

There is also another trail on the other side of the road which I have not done (edit: now done, see later posts in thread). The main draw of this hike is Doi Mod (about 1700m). The graphics below are from a trail race called LKL-DMT. The Doi Mod route is the first graphic. The second graphic is the Doi Mod route combined with the Langka Luang route. The GPS track for both routes is also below.









If you did want to experience these mountains and you are available when they are running the race (usually December), it is a good and relatively cheap way to do it. Plus you get the shirts and medal and food etc. They have different options: the Langka Luang trail (about 35km); the Doi Mod trail on the other side of the road (about 37km); or both together plus a bit more (80km). Search Google or Facebook for 'LKL Trail Race'. This organiser also runs another mountain trail race at Doi Luang (the next national park to the east) usually in June.

The Langka Luang race doesn't go to Langka Noi, instead at the summit of Doi Langka Luang it continues on down the other side of the mountain in a circular route back to HQ (see GPS file). It's another option for hikers to explore. Presumably with 100s of people running through it every year it will be in at least half-decent shape. You can also see that trail half-marked on the second picture on this thread.

Here is a map to pinpoint all the different peaks:

So onto the actual trail. The trailhead for the Doi Langka hike is at a radar station/phone tower, coordinates 19.051933, 99.381713. The bottom of this road has a barrier across it but motorcycles can just drive around the barrier. If you had a car the barrier is not locked so you could lift it up and drive through. In my experience the radar station at the top is not manned and I think it unlikely you would encounter anybody on the road or at the top. If you did not drive through the barrier you would be faced with a 3km uphill walk just to get to the trailhead. Of course if doing this trek with a NP guide they would drive you to the start.

Since I was arriving by motorbike and not using guides I needed to get back to my bike, so I turned around at Doi Langka Noi, camped at Doi Langka and finished where I started. Total distance over 2 days about 30km. In doing this I had the benefit or losing a lot of gear weight once I reached Doi Langka as I could set up camp there and return to it later. With just essentials on my back progress was fast to Langka Noi and back. Here is my GPS route trace (one way only, the return journey). The white line is Doi Langka Noi to Doi Langka Luang and the blue line is campsite at Doi Langka Luang back to trailhead.



The white line is a moderate difficulty, mostly gradual inclines and only one or two steep climbs/descents. Half of it is in the forest but you are never too far from a ridgeline or good view. The blue line is always ridgeline, very technical and steep throughout; you are always going up or down and the inclines are always steep, trekking poles or a good stick help a lot as they move some of the strain away from your legs to your arms and also help with balance. Especially with a big backpack I would say the blue line is about as tough an 'ouch' trail as you can find. Elevation profiles:



You can see the steepness between Langka Noi and Langka Luang is not as harsh as trailhead to Langka Luang (remember the elevation profiles are in reverse - back to the start).

The entire 19km trail (as well as the Gurgling Trail) is marked on the Backcountry Navigator app but here are my gps files anyway in case you want to use a different app:



Since this is mainly a ridgeline trek, there is no natural water source until you get very close to Doi Langka Noi, which is a couple of days/14km from the start, so you *may* need to carry a lot of water. I say 'may' because when I went, there were large bags of water at each of the campsites, but I think that they were left over from the trail race I mentioned, which had just happened a day before. I did this trek in December so a trek in March or April may not have any flow at all, and a trek in the middle of the rainy season may have a few more streams.



It is cold on any mountain in North Thailand in winter; 10 degrees is normal and it can go as low as freezing. I had a brilliant night's sleep (9 hours) in a 10 degrees rated sleeping bag, 2 pairs of socks, 2 t-shirts, one hooded top, thick gloves and 2 pairs of trousers. This all adds to the weight you will have to carry though, your pack will probably be over 10kg including tent, food, water, sleeping bag, clothes, camera, torches and powerbanks/batteries. If trekking with a guide you can usually arrange porters who will carry your stuff for a fee. When I woke up the thermometer somebody has nailed to a tree read 12 degrees, but by then the sun had risen. In the night I think it would've been about 8.





2000m is a high elevation and less oxygen makes any exercise harder. It's only a few km a day on paper but when you add in the inclines and thin air; the reality is tougher. Due to the overall distance and the amount of stuff you need to carry (particularly water), I wouldn't recommend the full 19km trek or my version of it without a guide unless you are experienced trekking and in good shape. Even though this trail is well-marked and fairly obvious throughout, you should still have a gps (or phone with gps app). I didn't see anybody else on the trail at all over 2 days. Nor did I see or hear any animals (or any tracks) by the way, except birds and insects. I noticed a lot of the trees were scorched so recent forest fires may have had something to do with that but more likely the forest has just been poached to death as is the case in most of the north.

My legs took about 3 days to recover from this trek! Eat lots of protein to speed up muscle recovery.

I went to this national park again this week on the way from Chiang Mai to Nan. My aim was to conquer Doi Mod which I mentioned a few times earlier in the thread. The view from Doi Luang at the start of this thread shows Doi Mod on the horizon. The main road is about half way in between where I am standing and Doi Mod.



Haze/smog was very bad, pm2.5 readings were over 150 most days on my trip which is classed as "unhealthy", and it really affects the view. I would not really advise trekking in the north of Thailand February-April if the main reason for going is to see vistas, because the visibility is usually bad due to forest fires and farmers burning fields. Sometimes you can get windows of a few days when the visibility is better though. I did the hike starting about 9.30am and arrived back down an hour or so before dark. As the day got older the visibility noticeably improved so most of the photos below are from the way down. Still, views would be better in and around the rainy season, or perhaps at the start of the dry season (which was when I did Langka Luang and found very good visibility).



Actually Doi Mod is not the highest point, that's slightly before in a forested area without any views. You can see on the elevation map above.

The trek starts from the main road at a shrine and there is space to park a car or bike there. Although the track is clear throughout, you will need the GPS file (if not using a guide) because there are a couple of turns near the start off dirt roads that you would not notice without the GPS. Also there are sidetrails near the start too. There are still a few marker ribbons around on this track from trail races which are helpful, but don't rely on them too much as most have been taken down.

A guide is advisable for the inexperienced as it's 8.3km one way so 16.6km total. I'm doing a lot of hiking so can get up and down quite fast. I think most people would struggle to do this as a day hike (unless they set off around dawn) and so would need to camp on the mountain. Or if you took a headlamp and torch you could maybe do the final bit in the dark. I always take a torch even I plan to be back well before dark, just in case something goes wrong. The GPS time of 2 hours 40 minutes is for the downhill only and I was jogging some as my pack was light by then. I didn't record on the way up, to save battery, but that took me about 4.5 hours with a few breaks mixed in. I took a whole pineapple, 3 apples, some protein bars, 3 small bottles of water (about 1 litre total) with electrolyte solution and a couple of snacks and it was about right for me. In dry season there weren't any natural water sources. I've found I need less water than most people, and the fruit had a lot of water, so plan on 2+ litres to be safe, more if overnighting.

It's hard to judge which hike is better out of the Langka Luang hike and this hike, because of the haze, but I think the Langka Luang one probably edges it. I'd score this 7.5/10 (maybe 8 or 8.5 if good vis) and the Langka Luang one 9/10.

GPS file:

Note I turned around at Doi Mod and retraced my steps to my bike. The trail does continue down the other side of Doi Mod but I have no experience of going any further.

Brief description of trail: the first 1.5km is along a firebreak - very wide trail. The next 1.5km is up and down a small hill. The next 1km is along a dirt road which has motorbike tracks. This part has other signs of human habitation like big concrete water storage containers. Then you turn off this road and scramble up a hill. You will not notice this turning without the GPS track on your phone. It levels off for 1km or so and then is a big ascent up to the main ridgeline where you will get your first real views. The final 2km is along the ridgeline, through a forest at high elevation (some macaques here) and finally up and down some steep ascents (with metal railings that I guess they flew in by helicopter) to Doi Mod.



You can see how the haze makes it impossible to get a clear picture.





Water storage tanks. These will surprise you as until then you think you are in undisturbed forest.



The first view of Doi Mod after about 3km walking, it's the mountain on the right on the horizon.

getting closer...






view from the top.





when you get to the railings you're nearly there.

Made it!





that's Langka Luang on the far horizon, only just visible.





very steep final ascent