Great Wall Impressions
Our ‘hands down’ favorite aspect of Beijing was our 10km hike on the Great Wall! We followed the advice of friends and chose this full-day excursion that provided us five hours of appreciation for one of the ‘new seven wonders of the world.’ This section of the wall included both reconstructed and original (deteriorated) conditions of the wall and its many towers.
The natural mountainous landscape was a beautiful reminder of the Creator and the lovely weather was an added bonus! We had a wonderful day being outdoors together! Our bodies endured the extreme undulations of the ridgelines of the mountains during our trek. It was fun to envision many warriors defending ancient China from ‘marauding invaders’ because the wall consists of customary fortress crenellations for attack as well as defense ‘portals’ to repel wall climbers (these looked like built-in toilets).
Our hike was filled with beautiful vistas that featured the wall extending as far as the eye could see – both ahead and behind. We couldn’t resist this occasion to pose for numerous photos along the way! We were treated mostly to solitude at this remote section two hours northeast of Beijing. However, along some of the way we were ‘inconvenienced’ by a half-dozen would-be entrepreneurs who described themselves as ‘local farmers.’ We supposed it wasn’t planting time because they were intent on selling us T-shirts, drinks and their tour guide services!
Our long hike was strenuous – more like a ‘scramble’ in many places because it regularly required us to use at least three of our limbs! We rejoiced when we saw our ‘finish line’ of a swinging bridge over a frozen river – just in time because we had been lamenting the extremely steep climb to even greater heights that we could see beyond the river!
We have learned that many Chinese like to climb different sections of the Great Wall throughout China – not unlike hikers on the Appalachian Trail in the eastern US. After all, Chairman Mao challenged his nation with the statement that ‘you are not a man of courage if you do not climb the Great Wall…’ – so when we finished our wonderful day Tanner declared that she must indeed be a man of courage!
~ Jeff
