Truly perfect day at the Great Wall

My two compatriots and I had arranged a trip to the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu today. Absolutely an amazing place.

There are four segments of the Great Wall accessible from Beijing. We had been warned away from Badaling as a tourist trap. One of my companions on this trip had been to Jinshanling on a previous trip to China and also seen Simatai off in the distance. He was trying to be nice about it but really wanted to make it clear that those were too challenging for someone of my fitness level... poor.

So Mutianyu was our choice. We arranged a car with the help of the office. Set price of 700RMB (less than $100) gave us the car and driver for the day. A bit under a two hour ride up to the parking area, the driver would wait until we came back down and then drive us back to our hotel.

From the parking lot we hiked up a row of t-shirt vendors, snack vendors et cetera until we reached the cable car terminal. Cable car up to just below a point on the wall at more or less the center of the accessible part of the wall. Then hiked on the wall.

The day could not have been more perfect, sunny and comfortable very early fall day with the foliage just barely starting to turn colors. For me, it was an overwhelming experience to be in this iconic place. It's one of those places that I never really thought I'd see.

From the cable car head we hiked westward and upward until we made it to the limit of the area where tourists are allowed. The last section (second picture) was pretty challenging for someone whose exercise has been limited to a 30 minute daily walk on the flats of Houston. The very last bit is very steep, practically a stone ladder. After a couple of rest stops on the way, I caught up to my younger, fitter friends at the top. I was gasping and seriously wondering if I had overtaxed.

We rested quite a while up there, had snacks and water and let me get my heart rate back to normal. Then back, mostly downhill, to where we started.

When we hit the spot to turn off and take the cable car down we sat for a bit again. If we ignored the cable car, the next stretch was also mostly downhill. At the end of it were three ways to get down: a gondola, a "toboggan run", or walk. We ended up walking it all the way down. Massively easier than up.

We were by no means alone on this segment of the Wall. But it was also not very crowded. The vistas were beautiful as the wall snaked along the mountain ridges. And even though the wall has been restored, just being on this ancient thing is very moving.

Altogether we spent about four hours hiking on the wall. We didn't quite cover all the way to the eastern end of the Mutianyu section but reasonably close. Total trip time from leaving the hotel until returning was a bit over eight hours.