The Great Wall - Mutianyu

The Great Wall is actually broken up into a series of segments in northern China, some refurbished and some not, and several close enough to Beijing to be visited for a day trip. On Saturday I had my first encounter with "The Wall," along one of the unrefurbished areas close to the village of Mutianyu. Beijing Hikers organized a 15 kilometer hike along and on a part of the wall connecting fifteen guard towers, with many verticle ascents and descents of rock, mud, dry dirt and pebbles along the way. The hike had originally been planned for the previous weekend but wet weather conditions meant there were ice and snow on the wall. The hike was precarious enough in some places without those added dangers.

The day of our trip was one of the usual Beijing haze, and even though we were two hours outside of the city, in the mountains, our views were obscured. Still, the temperatures were in the 60s (Fahrenheit) and we could see the areas around us so we were glad to be out of the city and breathing the (relatively) clean air.

The ascent started out fairly steep, and within minutes my heart was working overtime and my eyes were stunned by the view of the town below us. We could look ahead and see dilapidated guard towers in the distance. Parts of the hike looked relatively flat but they were deceptive.

After two hours of heart-pumping careful stepping we stopped for lunch and sat along a narrow segment of the wall between Tower 11 and Tower 12, looking out over the valley beneath us while we caught our breath and enjoyed our sandwiches for half an hour. In another thirty or forty minutes we reached our goal, Tower 15, where the haze and cherry blossoms prevented a good view of the valley below. We paused briefly and then began our speedy descent. Looking back up at the peak it seemed unreal to think that we were able to descend so quickly from a place where it had taken so long to reach.

In areas along the trail we could see bits of green fighting to grow through the dry earth. Much of the trail was bordered by dry scrub bushes, with spring cherry blossoms providing the only hints of color from blooming trees. In the middle of the path along the descent back to the village there was a purple flower growing up out of the dirt, catching the attention of all who bothered to look down.

Many of the areas of the Great Wall, such as Badaling, have been refinished and are tourist friendly, with cable cars and rope rides to make the ascent and descent easier. I'm sure I'll visit those areas one day but I'm glad that my first experience on the wall was here.

General photos from my hikes in China, including many more of this hike, can be viewed here.

Fresh Air

Beijing is said to be the second most polluted city in the world, after Mexico City. There is a growing environmental movement here in China but that hasn't yet changed the fact that Beijing residents don't often get to see the sky. Parents here are relieved of answering a question that plagues many American parents: "Why is the sky blue?". In a ploy to try and see the sky, and breathe some fresh air, I joined the group Beijing Hikers for one of their full-day hikes outside of Beijing City.

I met up with over 30 other hikers from around the world (China, Germany, U.K., Italy, France, Australia, U.S.) in the Starbucks Cafe in the luxury Holiday Inn Lido Beijing in northeast Chaoyang district at 8:30am on a recent Sunday morning. There was a large, clean comfortable bus waiting to drive us the hour and a half to the trailhead. As we embarked we were presented with snacks: fresh bananas and Snickers bars. During the ride we were given a map of the trail we'd be taking and the cell phone numbers of the hike organizers, just in case we wandered away from the group and needed help. We were told that the woman leading the hike would mark the path with red ribbons along the way and the man who would be at the rear of the group would be taking the ribbons down. The two of them would communicate with walkie-talkies as we went along, to communicate any information about anything interesting or any safety issues (once it was to warn of a rabbit trap right next to the trap, to ensure that no one stepped on it).

The hike started when we disembarked from the bus on the side of the paved road and started to walk along a gently sloping dirt path. After a few minutes we were out of sight of the road and could see only nearby scrub brush and trees in the distance, and a few power lines nearby. At the end of February the ground was still frozen and the bushes were still barren so the landscape was various shades of brown and beige, interrupted by evergreens in the distance. As we proceeded over gently rolling hills we walked past a small village and could see other hills off in the distance. A nearby schoolyard had exercise equipment, a basketball court and a pingpong table. After we passed the town we saw a small chicken farm, with white chickens pecking their way around a fenced in pen, then a large greenhouse for growing produce during the frigid winters. While passing through empty farm fields we encountered a farmer and his herd of goats, foraging for edible remains on the ground. After this the terrain started to change and the hills became steeper. From one we could look down at an area reservoir, which at 20 meters below the usual levels gave us a strong visual indicator of the drought affecting the Beijing area.

When we reached the road after four hours on the trail our bus was waiting to take us to a local restaurant in a nearby town. There was a dining room set aside for the vegetarians, more than ten of us, and we feasted on vegetable dumplings, noodles in broth, peanuts, cold tofu salad, a salad of a red radish like vegetable and chili oil, steamed rice, tomato omelette, a bean salad, and a number of other dishes, all accompanied by tea, beer and Coca Cola, before we were told that we could visit the other dining room for coffee, hot chocolate, nuts and cookies. After we'd eaten our fill we were ushered back onto the warm bus for the ride back to Beijing, arriving at approximately the time that had been estimated for our return.

Cloudy weather on the day of the hike prevented my seeing a blue sky. I still consider it 300 RMB well spent. I'm looking forward to more hikes in the future.