Beijing, China: Hiking the Great Wall

The highlight of our trip was doing a 10 kilometer hike on the Great Wall!

Here's a quick history of the Great Wall:
The Great Wall of China was built over 2,000 years ago, by the first emperor of China during the Qin Dynasty (221 B.C - 206 B.C.). After uniting China from seven Warring States, the emperor connected and extended four old fortification walls along the north of China that originated about 700 B.C. (over 2500 years ago). Armies were stationed along the wall as a first line of defense against the invading nomadic tribes north of China. The Great Wall is one of the largest building construction projects ever completed. It stretches across the mountains of northern China, winding north and northwest of Beijing. It is over 5,000 km long. Its thickness ranges from about 15 to 30 feet and is up to 25 feet tall. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Great Wall was enlarged to 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) and renovated over a 200 year period, with watch-towers and cannons added.

Our experience:
The day began by being picked up at our hostel at 6am and taking a 3 hour bus ride from Beijing. We hiked 10km from Jinshanling to the Simatai section. This section was built around 1570 during the Ming Dynasty. From Beijing, there are a few different Great Wall options. We took the most strenuous hike that was the farthest away from Beijing because it's supposed to be the most beautiful and the least crowded. Since this section of the wall is original, the rocks and watch-towers in a lot of places have crumbled to the ground and there are a lot of loose rocks. The hike took us a few hours, since it was up and down most of the time. The entire experience was incredible!!!!!

To get up to the wall, we took a cable car.
Here's a video we took at the beginning of the hike:



As soon as we arrived on the Great Wall, we were overwhelmed with how beautiful the scenery was. Mountains were everywhere and the wall seemed to go on forever.

For the first half of the hike, these two women from Mongolia joined us. They knew a little English and they told us that they were farmers who had walked an hour and a half through the mountains to get to the Great Wall. It was actually fun walking with them. They told us stories about their families and helped us get down really steep parts of the wall. Plus, they took lots of pictures of us! When we were about to cross over into the second section of the hike, we had to buy a ticket. It was at this point when they brought out their bags of souvenirs to sell us in order to support their family. We bought a few small, overpriced things, gave them a hug and continued the rest of our hike, as they began their long journey home.

Along the wall, we went through about 30 watch-towers. Some were in really good condition, like the one seen in this picture. In each tower, we usually saw a Chinese vendor with a backpack full of cold water, coke, and beer for sale.

Jinshanling Great Wall

The farther we walked, the more difficult it got. The rocks were really unstable to walk on and it was almost all uphill. It didn't seem to phase us, though. We were having the time of our lives!

To get to this tower, we had to climb 100 really steep steps.

Simatai Great Wall
Here's a video of us about half way through:

A steep climb inside one of the watch-towers.

The wall was in such bad condition here that we had to hike along the side of it for a while.

Frank's loving it!

Being able to see a less-visited part of the wall was an exciting experience. Some of it hasn't been touched in what seems like centuries. Some of the guardhouses had no roofs on them, and we took a moment to climb the ruins.

This watch-tower has definitely seen better days.

The Simatai section of the wall is known as the most beautiful section on the entire wall.

This was at the end of our 10 kilometer hike. The views continued to get more impressive the farther we walked. It was breathtaking!

Finishing the hike, we crossed a suspension bridge across a beautiful river.

We ended the hike with a buffet lunch and then a 3 hour bus ride back to Beijing. This was an unbelievable experience and definitely a dream come true!!!