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Talk is easy, there are always so many that know what should be done, but so few that do something. Since we cannot solve the world’s problems, we try to tackle the ones right here in Ton Sai…. rebolting and creating more awareness for nature conservation. Wee’s Climbing School has organised several community projects over the years that resulted in better equipped climbing routes. Please help us with our new project for 2009; the ThaiTanium project which aims at making more titanium bolts available for rebolting.
A green vacation?
Unfortunately, it seems that most climbers are here for a few weeks vacation and set in a consumption mode, too busy to have the time of their life to think about nature conservation. Behaviour noone would consider cool at home, seems perfectly normal here. It’s almost a sport to lament the growing garbage hills in Ton Sai, while ordering another coffee to go. However, there is no official garbage removal in Ton Sai, the vast majority of garbage is dumped somewhere and then burned. What more do you need to know to avoid all plastic and styrofoam? Who enjoys the stench of burning garbage? There is no need for ordering any drinks or food to go which in Thailand always means it comes packed in styrofoam. Refuse the plastic bag in the minimarts. Return the plastic water bottles as well as cans, both have a value and will be recycled. Beer out of a can tastes the same as out of a bottle. Thai breweries have so far been unable to establish a system to recover used beer bottles. All glas bottles end up in dumps. When you are not drinking beer, you will be drinking 3 to 4 litres of water every day, so buy your water in bulk. Bulk water is sold at ”The Shop & Everything” in Ton Sai not far from our school or ask at your bungalow reception.
On all our Deep Water Soloing trips lunch is packed in stainless steel containers and water comes in 20l refillable bottles. When we carry beer or soft drinks, it’s cans only. A mountain of styrofoam, plastic and glass avoided on every trip.
Taking a snorkel trip? How much waste will the organizer produce for you? Lunch packed in styrofoam, then packed in plastic bags, plastic water bottles packed in plastic bags...at home everyone knows about responsible consumption, please help Ton Sai by insisting on environment-friendly service during your time here. The upside potential of local businesses learning better conservation behaviour through customer pressure is huge!
JUST DO IT: Route Safety by rebolting and upgrading anchors
We have opened many routes ourselves in Thailand, Wee Changrua is probably the one Thai climber with the most experience in setting new routes and rebolting. There is a continuous re-bolting effort on Railey. The bad news is, that even a climbing paradise is not free of petty politics or maybe it’s human nature between people who share the same objective. We will never ask for money donations, but make it possible for a visting climber to donate bolts or rings to rebolters. We want to get something done over playing politics. Therefore, all our projects are completely open to the public, all donations and expenses are accounted for in an open book.
Project ThaiTanium 2009: Together with Tom Cecil, who in terms of new routes in Thailand is a high producer and as a rebolter not too vain to rebolt a nice line from someone else, we kicked off this project with the goal to make more Ushba Titanium bolts available for rebolting. Tom will be using his contacts to get Titanium bolts in the US from Ushba and bring them to Ton Sai. Wee’s Climbing School will pre-finance the bolts. The bolts can then be donated by anyone via buying a t-shirts that says “I sponsored a titanium bolt in Thailand - Enjoy Climbing Thailand”. Every t-shirt will buy one bolt, the buyer can attach his name to the donated bolt. When there are enough bolts for a route, the bolts will be made available to rebolters with sufficient experience. Preference will be given to the more popular routes, but you can also mark your donation for a certain route. Wee’s Climbing School pledges to sponsor 50% of the cost of the first 10 packs of Hilti RE 500 used for rebolting in 2009.The logbook on donations and expenses will be open to the public at our school. Please stop by for more info or to buy a shirt!
Mambo Bungalows: 10 rings
ClimbAsia-Singapore: 10 rings
PaSook Resort: 5 rings
Dream Valley Resort: 5 rings
Egk and Tio‘s Coffee: 5 rings
Pyramid Coffee (Chai): 5 rings
Forest Resort: 3 rings
Phupha Bookshop: 3 rings
Viking Climbers: 3 rings
Freedom Bar: 3 rings
Green Valley Resort: 3 rings
Banyan Tree Resort: 2 rings
The Shop & Everything: 2 rings
Wee’s Climbing School: 28 rings
Visiting Climbers donated 33 rings with the biggest donation coming from a group of Chinese climbers from Beijing. The goal was to replace 100 anchors, ring donations totalled 120 of which 100 were placed on the rock within 2 months!! Thanks again to everyone, also to those who volunteered their time to replace anchors!!! The remaining anchor rings were placed on new routes by Tom and his friends in 2006/2007, some made it on new routes on Koh Yao Noi.
In 2004 Wee’s Climbing School lead the first initiative to replace run-down knife-thin carabiners with anchor rings; at the time supported by some of the other schools we equipped all easy routes at One-Two-Three, Muay Thai and Diamond Cave with anchor rings, to increase safety on the routes that are the busiest toproped routes every day.
