Tuesday, November 6th, 2007...11:08 pm
Hiking the Great Wall in China
You may have noticed that I’ve been absent for about two weeks from my blog. My wife, Gerry and I were on vacation in China. We visited Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou. An amazing trip. Gerry climbed several sections of the Great Wall and I decided to go to the top of one large stretch.
As a backpacker, when I see a mountain peak, I want to keep going until I reach the top. I climbed from tower to tower, rising about 1,500 feet in about 1.5 hours. The towers are located the distance two bowman can shoot their arrows to defend a section). There must have been 10 sections. At the top were more mountains and an endless stretch of Wall.
The Great Wall, an estimated 4,000 miles long, was built between the 5th Century BC and the 16th Century to protect the northern border of the Chinese Empire. It eventually failed miserably against the Mongols.
About twice the distance of the Appalachian Trail, imagine backpacking the entire wall. If nothing else, you would have plenty of shelters along the way.
Be light. Be safe. Be one with the pack.
2 Comments
November 25th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
We just got back from China as well – looks like we both got to see some of the same fall colors! I couldn’t believe how many tourists there were (everywhere!); also, their driving habits are quite a bit different too. Great place to take a vacation!
November 24th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Hello,
My name is Stephanie, I’m a student and I’m trying to plan a trip to China where I would spend a couple weeks to a month backpacking portions of the Great Wall. I was wondering what parts you would recommend, and methods of transportation within the city to get to the wall and back…. Any tips/tricks that would come in handy?
Thank you,
Stephanie
Leave a Reply