The autumn colours in the parks in Beijing’s West Mountains are famous throughout China, and the area is correspondingly crowded when the colours are at their peak.

We usually avoid hiking here for that reason. But during the lockdowns in early 2020 the hills here were one of the few places to go for a hike, and we got to know all the little trails in between the most popular areas.

On this visit we’ll use those little trails and firebreak roads to skirt the crowds, traversing hill sides and hiking gullies filled with all the fiery colours of the fall season.

The hike

We get on the trail where Beijing’s suburbs meet the mountains, hiking a hill track up to the firebreak road that skirts the higher hills.

That firebreak road takes us up to a peak with great views all around.

Across a valley to the south is the peak of Xiangshan.

Down into that valley goes our trail. Our high point on the north side is at an elevation of about 675m, the bottom of the valley is about 430m, and then on the other side we go up to about 500m again. Quite a dip!

Near the dip is the ‘Hanging Armour’ tower, which we pass on other hikes in the area.

Coming out of the dip, we end up right behind the peak of Xiangshan. Our trail then takes us down into a valley, following a dirt track towards the Machang Reservoir.

The hills around the reservoir are one of the best places to see autumn colours in Beijing.

We’ll follow the boardwalk by the reservoir, and then get on to the hill track that will take us up to the tops of the Western Hills Forest Park.

From the top of the Forest Park we’ll hike by the ‘Laughing Ghost Rock’ viewpoint, and if it’s a clear day we’ll have great views of Beijing in front of us as we hike the stairs down to finish at the East Gate of the park area.

If the park is very busy on the day we visit our bus might not be able to get all the way into the carpark, in which case we’d need to hike out a bit further. This might affect our post-hike picnic location, too.