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We’re at GuBeiKou now, having eaten what was a fine meal, and getting ready to settle into our suites. The bill for the meal was, amusing, more expensive that rooms for all three of us for the night. The Driver, in a rush of blood to the head, ordered stacks of the most expensive food on the menu. After much discussion, outrage, hilarity and mis-communication, we settled on a sum and paid our due. The rooms were twin share rooms (although we ll opted for single rooms due to the snoring problems every one else seems to have had, as was the common theme from all three of us) with a small bathroom and a real toilet. None of this squat bowl stuff. If it had been Christmas or my birthday I couldn’t have been happier. If there is one thing I hate in rural Asia, it’s the ablution facilities. The bed was about as semi comfortable as one might expect but the blanket or duvet was a treat. It made you warm as toast the minute you pulled it up over your shoulders. It was plenty cold (forgive my Americanisms) outside and a warm inviting bed just makes it all worth while.
We’d agreed on a time to get up and head to the wall. I’d have gone at 4:30 or 5:00am, but there was general discord over this, so we agreed to head up there around 7am, which meant leaving the GuBeiKou Hilton at around 6:30. It was, as expected, colder than a polar bears bath outside but we were rugged up and ready to roll.
We entered the wall at exactly the same point that we ventured to the night before. There were a few people heading up with us. I have noticed, more and more, a burgeoning group of local Chinese photography enthusiasts that are up with us at stupid o’clock to get the best light. Great, misery loves company!
Directions

We trundled past the Cable car after a conversation with a sleepy attendant who appeared to have the job of sleeping in the 2×2 ticket office. It seemed that we needed another ticket. Some stellar negotiation by the driver saw us over this obstacle and we moved on. We paused to photograph the directions which were stellar in telling you a bunch of stuff that didn’t really offer any assistance. With this knowledge we plonked on up the hill, past the awakening rows of shops, chop houses or doss houses in which a small community of wall dwellers lived their lives. Husband from the night before ducked out to see if we were sure that we didn’t need a guide and backed back in at our less that positive response. Up we headed, keen to get the adventure under way. From my reading and the discussions with the walking talking vending machine yesterday we estimated a five hour trek. We knew there was a military installation somewhere and that we had to get around it. No Problems!! Take note here, that this attitude was the start of our problems! Planning and listening are two great attributes for a trekking adventurer. Instinct told me to get a guide. An annoying guide put me off. Go figure eh?
First light at JinShanling

Ahhhh, first light. It’s cold but not freezing. We stop here and there to take some pictures. It’s always difficult not trekking with a photographer (or visa versa) as the demands of the photographer are usually all over the place as one strives to get the shot (preferably sans human presence ) that is unfolding in from of them. I am going to be unusually painful to deal with today as the sun is at our backs and therefore, most of the photography is in front of me. Because I stop a lot (also to catch my breath in places) to get a shot or eleven, my colleague cannot resist the urge to forge ahead and become the subject of most of my shots. I am not a photoshop Guru, so the shots here without humans are testament to my patience as I waited for him to duck into the next tower or walk over a crest and out of sight!! Now and then, a person in the shot looks good and give it perspective, but not all of them. Oh well, we press on!!
The Wall, it bucks and weaves

It’s about 45 minutes or so to trek to the spot where were were photographing last night. It looks quite different. The route lays itself out in front of us! Really something to look forward to. In the photo above you can see one toothy section going up the side of a ridge. These areas were barracks for the troops, storage facilities and general rooms for eating etc. It’s a narrow path up through there, with each small plateau being the site of a small room. Obviously the wooden structures are long gone, but you get a sense for what it may have been like to live and breath this place for a significant part of your life. The Officers and generals got the towers, of course, along with their retinue. This seems more appealing, somehow. The wall varies in width as you traverse it. In some places the terrain wouldn’t allow for a wider wall. It’s amazing engineering just building it where it is, with the brick and mud formula!!
The trek is going along very well. It’s warmed up a little with the suns weak rays bearing down on us from an angle. There is quite a wind up on the ridge and this makes not wearing a jacket a chilly prospect indeed, so we’re forced to wear the jackets while the temperature vacillates wildly between hot and cold depending on where we are standing on the wall.
Where the wheels come off

We can see the blockage from a way out. There is no obvious track so we decide to go up to the obstruction and see if it’s obvious. Of course, you can tell by my previous verbiage that there’s not going to be an easy way. Now this obstruction is not really all that far from where we started. The thought of walking back though is abhorrent and we’re determined to crack the code. We put our collective New Zealand and German brains together an, while in tune with nature, our karma and the fields of maize, we start looking for the obvious path to shangri la. We back tracked to where we could get off the wall. The Military installation was clearly south (we were heading east-west) with many farmlets and small villages of a few buildings down in the valleys. We spot some red tape and or string tied to several branches of trees and shrubs and quite correctly assume this was the way to get around the problem.
We proceeded to follow these signs of providence only to have them disappear as quickly as they came, seemingly having taken us in totally the wrong direction. Not wanting to walk in the opposite direction to our goal, we headed back to where we forked off (excuse the pun) following the red temptations and decided to stick next to the wall where it appeared there was a track of sorts. (We had wasted an hour in this endeavour so far, so our decision making was based on a desire to finish!!) For a few kilometres this worked well. The track was fairly well defined and we could assure ourselves we were not getting lost by leaning left a few degrees left and touching the wall as it towered above us. Yes, you guessed it, the track progressively got worse and worse. The surrounding vegetation grew higher and higher, got thicker and then, it got steep!!!
See the path….. what path?

As you can see above, there’s no discernible path. We hugged the wall (literally and figuratively, as it was our compass, our beacon, our savior!!) along sections of the wall where we could. In the end we cam across a section that was too steep to safely traverse. We back tracked and headed into a farmers field. We ducked back up to the wall, went for a while and then had to abandon the high ground again as the going got too tough. We spied a track heading up a gully parallel to the wall. It looked promising and we headed for it.
A Steep Prospect

In the picture above, you can see it’s quite hazardous and there is no track. On the left there are very serious looking ‘keep out‘ notices. We’re not keen to test if they are serious!! We walked around to the right and came across some fellow adventurers who had just struck the sign at the opposite end of the installation. They asked us directions and we said to follow the red threads (which had just tarted appearing again). We gave each other estimates of the remaining distances, weather patterns and predictions for the US elections and headed our opposite ways.
We were Back on the Wall!!!! But it was a far different wall from where we had left it. This last three hours was walking down some lower sections of wall that alternated between wuite good condition to absolutely destroyed. Sections of the wall were gone all together or were so hazardous or narrow that walking them was not possible.
The Wall disintegrates

It was a sad contrast from the upper reaches that are in far better condition. Even those that have not been restored are generally in better condition than this. But it’s history unfolding in front of us and as you can see above, we’ve got a fair walk to go!!!! It looks easy, but it has a way of wearing you down. “Just another ridge”, “Just another corner” and it just goes on for ever. It’s beyond awe inspiring!
The Crest

It was solitary going on this section. Apart from the two blokes we had conversed with earlier, we were alone with our thoughts and cameras. Free to stop for a drink, a snack and a cigarette (not me, but you get the idea) and to suck in the lifes work of people from another era. The view is breath taking, the air brisk and pollution free, the bees are buzzing and the odd bord chirps here and there. It’s idylic. We pass an older couple who were doing what we were doing, marvelling over what can be achieved if you’re nuts enough.
A little further down, and through some of the most dangerous sections we’d walk on we hear the screaming of a little kid. It seems that some genius set of parents had decided to come up onto the wall for a walk with their four year old. He was terrified and it was obvious that something horrible was going to happen soon. Matthias tried to convince them in basic chinese that it was more dangerous behind us but they blundered on. Later that afternoon they were following us, the terrain having beaten them and their terrified tot, for sure!!
GuBeiKou was now clearly in front of us. The Next section of wall across the vally (WoHushan) looked temptingly at us, as it spiralled up the next mountainside. Not today! We’re five plus hours in and our feet are telling us that we’re office workers!!
The Wall keeps going, up and over!!

You can see above where it goes into the distance. This looks like a challenge for another day!!!
Ghosts of Communism past

We come off the wall down a valley that seems to be inhabited with many buildings. But it’s a ghost village. The communist ideal, the collective and the gathering of the workers ll seems to have gone to dust here. The fields have scraps of the harvest left in them, the buildings are in rapid decline, with vestiges of their former glory on them with fine carving, masonry and woodwork sadly left to rot slowy.
And we popped out on to the main road, turned left and headed to the hotel. A Coke, a few smiles and a few hours later I was bathing my feet in hot water!!!!
Heaven!
Until the next adventure!!
Rob