Beijing, China 18 June 2008

Yesterday, I arrived in Beijing from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia having just crossed the country from Dalanzadgad to Huvsgul Lake.

On Craig’s List, I had found Steve Klein [golden.2004[at]hotmail.com] offering walking tours along less traveled portions of The Great Wall of China. We exchanged emails and phone calls while I was in Mongolia and agreed that he would pick me up at my hotel at 7:00 a.m. on 18 June.

The weather forecast was optimistic, but in reality the weather could not have been worse. It was foggy, smoggy, and I, after a two week odyssey bouncing around in an SUV across Mongolia, was groggy. It was not an ideal day for photography. As we drove 90 miles northeast of Beijing near the city of Miyun we became acquainted, exchanging our stories of how we both ended up in Asia.

Steve is a Canadian from British Colombia and is married to Rebecca, whom he met in BC. She is from Beijing. They have a four- year old son, and moved here three years ago to give their son an opportunity to experience both of his cultural heritages.

The early morning drive through Beijing was quick, as there was little traffic at this hour. We were soon on a new limited access six lane highway that was as modern as any highway in the world. Traffic was mostly all black cars: Buicks, large Volkswagen sedans and Audi’s. How did Buck become the car of choice for the Chinese?

As we drove out through the murk I wondered what effect the gloomy atmosphere is going to have on the Olympians. Steve mentioned the best months to visit Beijing are usually April and October when the skies are clear.

Olympic athletes will have trained for years, only to have to compete in a pea soup atmosphere. Steve told me how lucky I was as the landscape is so lush now. It has rained more this year than it has in the past couple of years. He said it is normally very dusty but now the hills are covered in lush vegetation.

Once we left the highway we climbed up a hill on a curving road past temporary bee hives. It seems the beekeepers transport their hives to open areas alongside the road, and sell fresh honey from temporary stands. As we passed them I could see the bees swarming around. How does that affect business?

We passed through a simple wooden arch with “Shi Cheng” written on it and drove to the end of a lane to a large parking lot. Until recently, this had been an area where the locals had set up a makeshift tourist attraction. They had the rights to charge an admission fee, and there were stalls set up to sell souvenirs. That all changed when the government enacted a law to protect the Wall and limit access.

In 2002, the New York-based World Monuments Fund put the Great Wall on its list of the World’s 100 Most Endangered Sites. As a result, in 2003 Beijing announced its first regulations to protect the Great Wall in the capital area. Then last December the central government announced a new national law to protect the wall. It is now illegal to remove bricks or stones from the wall, carve names in the bricks, hold raves on the wall, or build a house against the wall. Also important, the law says that “all citizens, legal entities and organizations” are charged with protecting the wall and with reporting illegal activity to government agencies. It is fine for individuals to hike in this area, but not for busloads of tourists or commercial activity.

After parking the car and deciding what to carry, we headed off through a small residential area made of single story masonry buildings with gray tile roofs. There was a fair bit of renovation underway. We had to find our way through a couple of lanes until Steve located the trailhead. We began our walk at N 40o 32’ 21.0” E116 o 48’ 27.5” (How do you know that, Mike? Shouldn’t we be told?)

The trail was narrow with a compacted soil surface that passed through a series of fruit and nut tree orchids. Steve kept commenting on how lush it was compared to the last time he hiked this area. We passed a couple of farmers coming down the trail and exchanged “Ni Hoa’s” in passing.

Visibility seemed to be lessening, to the less than optimistic photographer. Once we entered the trail it became steeper. Steve said it would be moderate until we arrived at the first watch tower, then get a little steeper, and the last part would be very steep. He suggested we follow the wall up to the top-most tower, and then return via the canyon below the outside, or unprotected side, of the wall. It would depend on what the weather was like when we got to the top as to how we would return. If it was hot and sunny, we would return via the canyon where it would be cooler.

Looking up the hill, one of the three guard towers was visible. I was assured there were three towers. Visibility was limited due to the fog. There was an occasional break in the overcast sky, but that only exposed another layer of clouds.

The Wall in this area is different from the usual images one sees. The top of the wall is less than six feet wide. On the protected side (friendly), it is less than ten feet about the ground. On the exposed side (unfriendly), it is a shear drop of a couple of hundred feet.

The canyon below is spectacular. We could hear water running, which Steve said he had not heard before. The rains this past year have created many changes. At times it was difficult to find the trail due to overgrown vegetation.

The path on top of the wall is very uneven, so at times we would climb off it and walk along a parallel trail. According to Wikipedia, several walls referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built from the 5th century BC. The most famous is the wall built between 220–200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; little of it remains; it was much farther north than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men.

It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.

The section that Steve took me to is known as the Si Mai Tai Great Wall. It is the only section of the wall which has kept its original features. Most of this wall was built during the Bei Qi (577A.D.) reign; it was later restored during the Ming Dynasty.

There are clearly two horizontal sections to the wall we were on. The lower portion is piled stones. The upper section is honed stones. In many places the stones were joined with white mortar.

We arrived at the first guard tower, and climbed around the inside. It looked nothing like the rest of the wall. It was constructed of bricks and white mortar on the upper lever, and of uniformly shaped stones on the lower level. There were arched doorways and windows. On a clear day, there must be beautiful views into the canyon and up to the higher guard tower.

We stopped here for a lunch of sandwiches, fruits and water that Steve was carrying. By now, we were very wet from walking through the damp underbrush and from the humidity. I could tell the weather was really beginning to lighten up and get brighter. Or it was just my imagination? I checked my light meter and in fact it was brighter. There was hope.

We continued along the trail to the next tower. It was not easy to reach the door of the second tower as the stairs had been removed. So, we continued on to the highest tower. The top tower stands at the crest on one side of the canyon with the dry river bed hundreds of feet below. The side of the canyon is so steep you wonder why they even bothered to build the wall. Certainly, no one without sophisticated climbing equipment could have scaled this wall.

After climbing to a place above the highest tower along a cantilevered ledge which we probably should not have been on, it was time to return.

There was a brief time where we could see the outline of the tower on the other side of the canyon, but it was so unclear my camera could not focus on it in the haze. As it was still relatively cool, with a heavy overcast, we decided to return along the wall and not climb down into the canyon.

The weather aside, it was a fascinating hike, well worth the early morning departure. Steve was a good guide and an interesting hiking companion.

© Copyright Michael Morrissey, All Rights Reserved.

Michael Morrissey is considered one of the new generation of adventure and travel photographers. Based in Bangkok, Thailand with a passion for travel, Michael got hooked on photography while driving a bus from Istanbul to Katmandu in the 70’s; an obsession briefly interrupted with a twenty year career in business. You can view his photography at: www.mjmorrissey.com

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