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The short version: closed shoes, clothes you can move in, and one layer more than you think you need in the cool season. Here is the full checklist, plus the mistakes we see at the parks every week.
Every park in Chiang Mai enforces the closed-shoe rule, no exceptions we have ever seen. Trainers, perfect. Those hiking sandals with the heel strap that you are convinced count as shoes? The desk usually disagrees, so don't gamble. And flip-flop arrivals end up in the bin of rental park shoes, worn by several hundred sweaty strangers before you. Nobody's favourite part of the day.
The uniform on any course is a t-shirt with shorts or leggings. One warning from experience: that harness wraps around your thighs and stays there for two hours, and very short shorts stop being comfortable somewhere around line ten. Go knee-length, or leggings. Skirts and dresses do not work at all, and leave the baggy festival trousers at the hotel, loose fabric and carabiners are a bad pairing.
Here is the one nobody sees coming. Your hotel in the city is warm at 8am. The park is not, it sits at altitude in the Doi Saket or Mae Rim hills, and on a January morning up there the thermometer can read under 15 degrees while town is in the high twenties. So: light fleece or windbreaker for the briefing and the first few lines. An hour in you will be tying it around your waist, which is exactly why it should be something that ties around a waist.
In the hot season, bring a spare shirt for the ride home instead. You will use it.
Long hair goes in a low ponytail, high buns fight the helmet. Glasses are fine, the helmet straps hold them well, but bring a retainer strap if you have one. Sunglasses on a cord or in a zipped pocket between lines. Leave dangling jewellery at the hotel, along with anything you would cry about losing from a pocket at 40 kilometres per hour.
Every park has the same rule in practice: secured or stowed. A phone in an open hand is a phone in the forest. Zipped pockets work, chest mounts for action cameras are ideal, and the guides will happily shoot photos of you with your phone from the platforms if you ask. The parks also sell photo packages, which are decent value at the big moments like the 1,200 metre line.
May to October, throw in mosquito repellent and accept some mud on the walking trails. The parks run in light rain, and a cheap poncho lives happily at the bottom of any daypack.