We were making our way to see the great wall, but we didn't want to take the usual tourist circus route, so we found a path in our guidebook that sounded interesting. It seemed simple enough. Except they wouldn't let us on the first bus, so a "well meaning" stranger took us to another area and insisted "this is the bus you want, it's quicker". Yeah, thanks. I knew we'd gotten scammed when the bus dropped us off miles from nowhere and there was nothing but highway, fields and a row of unlicensed taxi's. The driver was quite insistent that this was our stop, and to get off the bus. Yup, scammed.
After haggling my way into a price to take us where we wanted (twice what we should have paid down from triple, what a steal!) We hopped in and started driving. My one consolation was that it ended up being MUCH farther than the scam driver had anticipated, and it really irked him. We made it to the starting area, and started hiking up towards the wall. The book said something like "A lovely 45 minute hike through a pine forest". Well, that wasn't quite how I would describe it, something more like "a terrifying two hour trek along cliff edges and mountain ridges in the middle of nowhere China far from any other living person where your mangled and lifeless bodies will likely never be found by anyone crumpled in a bloody heap at the bottom of the canyon you are about to fall into."
While it was actually that terrifying, the view once the wall came into sight was nothing short of spectacular. Without exaggeration it was breathtaking. Literally one of the very few times in my life where I have experienced the phenomenon of being utterly speechless at an incredible sight.
Hiking the Great Wall of China
Strange fields of something on our way to the hike
Finding the trail, Sabrina getting her camera out
Beautiful light in the forest
Didn't take many pictures on the way up, the hike was pretty intense. This is from the top of the mountain we hiked.
The view from where we started our hike along the wall
Our Asia trip mascot, Carrothead, traveled with us the whole trip.
Looking out over the mountain tops, the wall goes on as far as the eye can see
Turning around from the previous picture, there is a watchtower/fortress area you walk through
This image is a composite stitch. It's actually about twelve images stitched together to give a wider field of view.
After the fortress, we started walking along the wall, eventually to make our way back to civilization
This view is the opposite direction of the previous photo, most of the unrestored sections of the wall look like this
Apparently I was trying to look like cool guy after an arduous two hour hike. Unbeknownst to us, we were about to embark on an even longer hike to get where we needed to be, it would end up taking us over four hours to walk from this section of the wall back to the area where we could catch a bus to Beijing.
Ribbons tied to a tree along the way
More ribbons
Crumbling
Carrothead needed to get a shot here too
It's really incredible how isolated just this one small section is. There is literally nothing for miles, but this crazy wall just climbing over the mountains.
After about an hour and a half of hiking we started to reach an area that was in much better repair. This is where the modern restored section begins. Much easier to walk, but less character.
Winding along the mountain tops
Sabrina on one of the many undulations, they seem never ending when you are walking it.
Farther along we started to get to the much more well kept section. Very easy to walk on restored area.
Sabrina on the wall. Another composite image, three vertical shots stitched together
Finally we started to reach a more visited area, this lady was selling souvenirs and drinks
Would you believe me if I told you this staircase is much steeper than it looks?
How bout now?
It is seriously steep, like "Don't fall, you WILL die" steep.
We started to see more hikers and visitors the closer we got to the popular area
After eight hours of hiking, a full day of travel, getting scammed, being terrified we would die falling down a cliff, and walking along the infamous great wall of China, we were rewarded with a pretty beautiful sunset.
I stopped here to get another shot of the amazing sunset. Also because my legs were shaking so hard that I couldn't take another step. And we were only half way down to the buses!
Well the light was pretty much gone after that, and I didn't have the energy to take any more photos anyhow, so that's it for our trip to the great wall!
Originally I was going to combine the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square into this post, but I realized it is just way too many photos. The Forbidden City is an incredible place, it's gonna take it's own post worth of photos to show it, and it just makes sense to include Tiananmen Square in that post instead of this one. I'll be posting more from our trip through Asia soon, but for now I hope you enjoyed hiking along the Great Wall of China with us! As always if you like the post feel free to throw me an up vote, and remember to follow me @dexter-k on Steemit to see the continuation of this series, and much more original work all the time! Thanks so much for reading.
Dexter