5-day Great Wall Hiking

At the end of April, my colleague David and I went to Beijing for a 5-day Great Wall hiking trip. The trip covered seven sections of the Great Wall, they are: Huanghuacheng, Jiankou, Mutianyu, Gubeikou, Jinshanling, Simatai and Huangyaguan.



The first day was only a 2 hours hiking to warm up. Huanghuacheng is about 1.5 hours away from Beijing city, and this section of the Wall is rebuilt quite well. The Great Wall hiking involves a climbing up onto the Wall and it usually takes about 20-30 minutes.

The second day was a hard day as well as the following two days, each of these three days involved 6 hours hiking. Here is the itinerary,

Day 2, Dazhenyu village to Xizhazi village, hiking on Jiankou section; Day 3, Xizhazi village to Mutianyu section, hiking on Jiankou section then onto Mutianyu section (Yes, they connect to each other!!); Day 4, Jinshanling to Simatai, after that, one hour on Gubeikou section.

We spent the night at a farmer's house of Dazhenyu village on day 1 and started the hiking early in the morning. The Wall was so wild and the scenery was fascinating! There were small trees, wild grass and flowers on the Wall, some collapsed parts made the hiking very thrilling!

One can get tired easily while hiking on the Wall as the Wall was built on the top of the stone mountains, it winds its way from this mountain to that mountain and you can't see where it ends! My secret was that never look for the end but keep walking!

The road conditions of the Wall are quite similar for day 2 & 3 as they are so called wild Great Wall, you can meet only a few local people hiking, and no vendors at all to sell you water.

Definitely it is very dangerous to get through the Wall. However with the efforts of previous hikers, you can take a path by the collapsed Wall and skip the dangerous part then get back onto the Wall in no time.

One may camp in one of the towers of the Wall for fun. Surely the wild Great Wall doesn't suit everyone.

After four hours hiking on day 3, we got to Mutianyu, the most recommending section for our customers. It was rebuilt well, but the slope near the top/end of the hiking was really challenging! At Mutianyu you can also try cable car and slideway.

We spent the night at Jinshan hotel at the foot of Jinshanling section, it was a nice courtyard hotel and it offered simple western breakfasts.

Day 4, we set out early for the hiking from Jinshanling to Simatai, yes, these two sections are connected as well. The first two hours were for hiking on well-rebuilt Wall, the other two hours' hiking was a bit like the one on previous day, but without the bushes. Highlights at the end of the tour were about the rope bridge and the overhead cable. Try the later one so as to save another 30 minutes walking down to the parking lot, definitely you need some courage for that!

Gubeikou is actually the name of the area, there are two separate sections in the area, one is called Wohushan, the other Panlongshan, the later one connects to Jinshanling section. It involves another 4-5 hours for the hiking.

The last day was much more relaxing compared with the previous days, Huangyaguan Great Wall is located in Tianjin, and it is rebuilt well and it takes at most 3 hours for the hiking.
Some useful tips for the Great Wall hiking trips, sun cream, walking sticks, hiking boots, enough water and some snacks must be prepared, also no toilets along the Wall, you can solve your problems easily while hiking on the wild Walls, but for the Jinshanling to Simatai section, no way!

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTA4NzQyNjg=.html for pictures of all sections mentioned
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTA4NzcxNjQ=.html especially for the sections from Jinshanling to Simatai

Enjoy them!