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Camping on the Great Wall

Challis Hackley
Dec 25, 2017
5 min read

Saturday

So we took the Jiankou Great Wall Camping Trip through China Hiking (www.chinahiking.cn). It was two days during the end of Golden Week in China. We met at the Lama Temple (Yonghegong) Saturday morning. While there, we got to meet the other people in our group. Two sisters form Australia, two British girls and their Canadian friend who were studying in Hong Kong but on vacation in China, a pair of men from Singapore (one of them native and one of them French), as well as my five friends from ILP, me, and our Pakastani and Chinese guides to round out the group. Our guides took turns taking out luggage back to their office for safekeeping and then we piled into a large van and drove for a couple hours.

We arrived at a little town and had some lunch, got to talk and interact with each other a little bit more, get to know each other. Then we drove the last little stretch to the start of our hike. Unloaded everything and began packing our backpacks. For every two or three people there was a backpack with a tent, sleeping pads, an sleeping bags. After we were all loaded up and our packs were adjusted we set out at around 1:00 PM, past the foreboding sign and up the mountain.

It wasn't too rugged at first. We passed a small town, and the path up the mountain was almost paved, with large slabs of stone that I thought just made it harder, rather than easier, to walk. It was hot and humid and I was sweating buckets and breathing hard up the switchbacks. It was so quiet there though and the foliage is so thick and lush that you can forget where you are sometimes, on the outskirts of one of the largest and oldest cities in the world. It only took us an hour to reach the first part of the wall that we were going to stop at and it was well worth the wait.

Once I got there, I felt like I had been waiting for that moment my entire life and hadn't realized until then. The wall stretched out in both directions, rolling up and down with the mountains like it had been forged with the land, covered in plants and trees that matched the landscape, like it had always been there, growing leaves, and it would always be there. It was amazing.

We stopped and out guides told us a little bit about the wall and the land. The part of the wall that we were on was some 600 or 700 years old. There were parts of the wall that were older, no more than mounds of dirt now and some that were younger, newly repaved last year. The cement on this part of the wall was made of rice, sand, and water. He taught us how to tell which side was closer to the heart of China and which side was the Mongolian side (I'll give you a hint: there are only doors on one side of the wall). They told us about that particular section of the wall, how there wasn't really a point to it because they were in the mountains and it wouldn't be a good place for the Mongolians to cross but they had built it there anyway to connect the sections of wall to each other and make one cohesive structure.

He told us a story from long ago when they were still making the wall out of dirt bricks about a woman who cried so hard because her husband died building the wall that her tears melted the bricks and her husband's body came tumbling out.

I loved the history and it is think in the air there. We explored the watchtower some more and took some great pictures before setting out again. Walking on the wall here was like walking through the forest. The plants there are so thick in some parts that you can't even see the stone underneath. The leaves on the trees were just starting to change colors, one of my favorite things. Although the hike was two hours to get to our campsite because the first tower that we arrived at wasn't where we were camping. the time flew by as I gaped at everything around me.

When we arrived, setting up camp was pretty easy. We all chose our "rooms" and angled the tent so it could squeeze in, unrolled our sleeping pads, and unpacked our sleeping bags. We also started a fire, which consisted of moving around a couple of paving stones, collecting wood and kindling, and burning precious tissues to to get the fire started. Later that night, our food was packed in by a restaurant owner in from down in the valley. I do not know how he carried it all but it was delicious, eating by the fireside.

We stayed up late into the night talking and singing. It was truly remarkable hearing everyone's stories and songs in their native language. It was one of those rare moments where we were all able to come together, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or background. We were all there to appreciate this magnificent place and ended up celebrating our differences. Honestly I learned more about the world and it's people that night than in the entirety of my public education. Take me back.

Sunday

Woke up at 7:00 AM. That morning I had the best view while I brushing my teeth. No one was in a rush so we took our time tearing down camp and packing up. Then we hiked to the next watchtower, where some of our other group had been camping. The wall was so quiet but sound carried their. While we waited for everyone to catch up we could hear them talking as clearly as if they were standing next to us and they were some 50 feet away. From there, we started the hike down. The hike back is always easier and before I knew it, our time on the Great Wall was over.

We loaded our gear into the van and drove a short way to breakfast. On our walk to the restaurant we stopped by a roadside stand to try some honey. It was the first time that I had tried honeycomb, very good. So, I'm bringing back a jar of honey that I got from the Great Wall. Breakfast was great. I like the country-style serving. The table is set with a cup, a bowl, and a pair of chopsticks. And they have a spinning tray in the center where all the food resides and then you have access to everything. They had some great food too, including some great brown-sugar buns, like the Chinese version of donuts.

After breakfast we piled in and drove back to Beijing back to the meeting place. Our guides brought back our luggage and we were on our way back into the real world.