Kio Hin: free 360° viewpoint of Lampang and Chiang Mai mountains from 1431 meters

The Kio Hin viewpoint attracted me because, although it is picturesque, it is located along the road and is free.

In addition, on the way to this place, along the way there are waterfalls, hot springs and restaurants on the mountainside with equally stunning views. There are also companies here that provide Ziplines services (you are attached to a horizontal rope that is on an incline, and you glide over abysses and forests). If you are an extreme sports enthusiast, then here you will find a shop for renting four-wheeled vehicles for off-road driving (ATV, Quad, Buggy). Well, if you are an eco-aesthete, then there are hotels with stunning mountain views.

But if you are only interested in a free viewpoint, then you can limit yourself to visiting it.

Kio Hin coordinates: go to map.

I came to Kio Hin from Chiang Mai. Later I realized that Kio Hin is actually located in the neighboring province of Lampang. In fact, this place is almost on the border of Lampang and Chiang Mai provinces.

The drive here from Chiang Mai, including visiting several waterfalls and several more unsuccessful attempts to find other waterfalls, took several hours. This is a good half day trip.

Later, looking at photographs and maps, I realized that the Kio Hin viewpoint belongs to Chae Son National Park. There is an entrance fee to this national park, at least in the part where the hot springs are located. But if you take road 1252 from Chiang Mai, you definitely won’t have to pay to visit Kio Hin.

Next to the viewpoint there is a sign with the name of the park and the altitude mark – 1431 meters above sea level.

The app on my phone showed a slightly different height, but as you can see below the value, the height variation is ±11 m.

At an altitude of one and a half kilometers, a staircase diving down lead to some interesting place definitely…

Already at the beginning of the journey you can admire the mountains on both sides of the bridge.

It is a pity that the photographs do not convey the sensations that you experience standing on a mountain peak and looking at other mountains.

The bridge winds its way and finally comes to the highest stone on this peak.

By the way, it’s quite cool along the entire road – as always in the mountains. Therefore, dress warmly. If the weather is windy, this is especially noticeable here on the rocks – it can be quite cold.

It may seem that there are no 1400 meters of height here – at most, a few hundred meters. And this is true – there is a huge mountain range here, the height between the mountains, conventionally below, is still about 1 kilometer above sea level. The mountains and lowlands that are visible from this viewpoint are in the range of 1100-1500 meters above sea level.

And yet, being here you feel this height of 1400 – you feel it with every chilled bone of your body.

The road to Kio Hin, naturally, is a mountain serpentine, but compared to many other places, I would call the road easy. Of course, provided that you are very careful and obey the speed limit.

A couple of short videos of Kio Hin. In the first video I show a panorama of Kio Hin.

The second video shows a view towards the north: