Kaeng Krachan - ThorTip Waterfall and Phetburi River

The trail shown here goes to the ThorThip Waterfall viewpoint and then to the Phetchburi River (a known Siamese Crocodile and Asian Tapir site) in Kaeng Krachan National Park. If you want to go to the actual waterfall then where this GPS tracks says "fork" you must take the right hand fork. The waterfall is about 1 Kilometer from the fork on an easy to follow, but steep in places, trail

During the rainy season there are a lot of leeches on the trails (but few people!).








Important facts

Length of trail :: 8 km (4 km each way)
Hiking time :: 4 to 6 hours (includes return)
Difficulty level :: moderate/hard (scale : easy, moderate, hard, ouch)  remember the 4 Ks return is ALL uphill
Terrain :: Mixed Evergreen
Minimum essentials :: 2 L water, sugar source, snacks, dehyd salts





Key to trail

1Tream = the stream that ThorTip generates and joins the Phetburi river
CPark = Starting point (a small car park about 3 k beyond the Phanoen Tung Camp site)
Vieww = The view point for the Thor Thip Waterfall
River = Upper Phetburi River

The GPS track for the trail can be downloaded here......

The view point  ("Vieww" on the GPS track )

Re-visited these sites in first week of Nov (2010). A lot of maintenance has been done on the tracks and they are very easy to follow now. Very very few signs of wildlife though with the exception of dusky langurs (very twitchy though and nigh impossible to get close to). This probably due to the maintenance crews rebuilding the trails during the rainy season.

Its quite cool already up there, and chock a block with campers going the for the cold weather experience. I have never seen as many cars and people up there before. Last year I got a surprise seeing a saloon car up there, this year there was a minibus! It defeats me how they get up there :o

I just got back this last weekend and one of the treks I did was the ThorThip waterfall trek. I decided best to bring along one of the rangers from Pakrang to ensure I didnt get lost

The trail is well kept at the moment the first 3km are well marked. There is a break area where the trail splits which worked out that we took the "right" which took us down to near the top of the falls, after that we followed a trail near the viewpoint that dropped us down to the lowest point of the falls and two pools suitable for swimming. We stopped for a swim and as mentioned our ranger said the water was "drinkable" I didnt take the offer but it was very clean

After that we followed down the river for about 800 meters and noted a lot of animal tracks then followed a not very well marked trail up a steep ravine. Ranger pointed out a green viper on the trail ready to strike. The trail leads to the viewpoint of the falls then back to the rest point on a trail called "KP House" The climb is steep and almost all uphill, you need to be prepared for this

We noted dusky langurs, gibbons, and a beautiful water dragon. Also of note was elephants (a baby was quite vocal) using a waterhole about 2km from the top. The main trail had few animal tracks outside of the occasional pig track

What the trail had A LOT of were leeches! They were in the highest number I have ever seen, stopping frequently to remove up to 20 leeches from my shoes and legs, stopping to rest caused the jungle floor to come alive with them.

Overall the trail is very nice, and easy to follow for the most part with very beautiful views and not many people willing to take the trail to the bottom

I will put up some pictures once they are downloaded and also update my other adventures in KK

Great write up Jonathan, looking forward to learning more about KK!

The leeches are a pain, the only thing I have found which they don't like is the Red spray cans of "OFF" available at 7 eleven, Fuji and Villa. I load up my leech socks with it, keeps them off my legs but they seem to find their way onto my pack and then down my shirt!

Paul