About Basecamp Tonsai
Our Staff
Basecamp Tonsai grew out of Wee's Climbing School and we have been offering professional climbing instructions on the famous limestone cliffs over the Andaman sea since 1996. Basecamp Tonsai is under German management.
There are currently five climbing and deep water soloing guides working at Basecamp. All our guides speak excellent English, have been trained as climbing instructors following the standards of the German Alpine Club (DAV) and have at least three years of working experience.
Basecamp Tonsai trains and tests all guides at the start of each season, we are the only climbing school in Krabi to do so. We take "Climb Safe" very seriously, and have been guiding accident-free for over 10 years now.
Alek
Ched
Egk
Ib
Nan
Oub
Tong
Lonley Planet Recommends Us
We are recommended by Lonley Planet's edition on Thailand's Beaches and Islands as "the most professional outfit" in the area under our former name Wee's Climbing School.
Community Projects
Tonsai is our home and we are commited to preserve the unique beauty of this area, please read below and let us know your thoughts!
Community Projects and Thinking Green
Talk is easy, there are always so many people who know what should be done, but so few that do anything. 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. Basecamp Tonsai has organised several community projects over the years that resulted in better equipped climbing routes.
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 taking out food in styrofoam cups. 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? A plastic bag is gon eafter 20 years....styrofoam (yes the one you got your fried rice or mango sticky rice in) will be around FOREVER!
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 glass 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.
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 huge 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!
February 2009: Beach Clean-up at Ko Poda
The 15 road trippers from www.climbhotrock.com spent the time it needed to clear the small bay behind Ko Poda from garbage ... everything from those stupid styrofoam containers to baby diapers.
Thanks for the help!
And if you don't mind to lend a hand, check at Basecamp for the next beach clean-up at Ko Poda.
JUST DO IT: Route Safety by rebolting and upgrading anchors
We have opened many routes ourselves in Thailand and there is a continuous re-bolting effort going on. 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, both results in inefficient work or disappearing monies. 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. We glued over 80 new bolts in in 2009, not as many titanium as we wished as due to the financial crises, Tom could not come to Tondsai. Thanks to all for your great support.
February 2008:
In terms of hours of toproping, the anchors of One-Two-Three area must rank number one world-wide. Personally we don’t know any other climbing area where routes are climbed toprope by so many novice climbers for so many hours every day and this pretty much year round. You may wonder why at a time when so many hard routes display titanium bolts, the routes that have the most repetitions were still equipped with old bolts, well, so did we!
In Febuary 2008 we organised that these anchors recieved a titanium bolt as back-up. A total of 10 anchors were backed-up and each equipped with a new set of ropes and anchor ring. Thanks to Justin Day and Saman for the drilling. Thanks to Thomas, Chris and Sarah for helping. Thanks to Tex Climbing Shop for recharging batteries. By the way, there are over 10 climbing schools in Railay and Ton Sai using the One-Two-Three and Muay Thai areas daily for their customers. We did not receive any support in financing this project, the value of all materials used was 9,000 THB, the time and help of friends joining us was invaluable.
February 2006:
It was a strech but it worked: we tried the concept of “corporate sponsorship” successfully in Ton Sai. Several bungalow owners agreed to sponsor anchor rings to give something back to their customers! Most business owners in Ton Sai have little knowledge about the specifics of climbing, however, those who agreed to support the anchor replacements wanted to show that they care about their customers of who the huge majority are climbers. These businesses in Ton Sai (and one in Singapore) made donations:
- 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
- Basecamp Tonsai / 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
Basecamp Tonsai / 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.