Jinshanling Great Wall to Gubeikou Great Wall
Hike the main parts of the repaired Great Wall at Jinshanling, plus the top section of the Gubeikou Great Wall, with a mid-hike detour through the farmland around Hemp Village.
Booking info
Saturday, May 30
¥510 / ¥460 for members
Payment in advance required for this hike. More about payments
This is the slightly easier version of this hike, where we start at the main gate of Jinshanling instead of doing all the stairs from the east gate. We’ll hike the top section of the wall at Gubeikou and hike out by the adventure playground.
We’re starting at Jinshanling and hiking through to Gubeikou to avoid going through the border crossing checkpoint on the way back from Jinshanling—there are often long delays there for ID checks. Bring your passport/ID card in case we do need to show ID on the way out.
The Jinshanling Great Wall is a mix of fully-restored and lightly-restored wall where you’ll see picturesque views of large towers and sweeping lines of wall along the ridgelines.
Hike plan
We’ll start off on the park shuttle buses to get on to the main gate of the Great Wall at Jinshanling, and then follow the ‘horse trail’ up to the Great Wall.
Starting this way Jinshanling makes the hike easier, with a more gradual climb up to the wall. We’ll still have some steep sections to do, though!
We’ll get on to the Great Wall at the Houchuankou Pass which is on the eastern side of the Jinshanling Great Wall but below all the really steep stairs.
We’ll stay on the Jinshanling Great Wall all the way over to Taochunkou Tower, on the west side of the Jinshanling park area. We’ll have excellent views of all the Great Wall as we go, and if it’s a clear day, we’ll easily see all the way to Gubeikou.
It would be great to continue on the Wall all the way to Gubeikou—it’s all connected—but part of the Great Wall here borders military land and that section of it is blocked off.
From Taochunkou Tower we’ll leave the wall, walking beside it before turning off to follow dirt tracks through farmland and up a valley to get around the military area.
After a slow climb up that valley we’ll be back up on the Great Wall at Gubeikou’s 24-Eyes Tower.
24-Eyes Tower is the tallest tower on the Panlongshan ‘Coiling Dragon Mountain’ part of the Gubeikou Great Wall, and one of the largest, too.
The name ‘24-Eyes’ came from the number of windows—six on each of the tower’s four sides. The tower only has two sides now due to damage over the years, including explosions and gunfire during a 1930s battle between Chinese and Japanese armies.
We’ll take a break at 24-Eyes Tower before following the wall down to Haowang Tower, passing through several more towers, with views of a long line of Great Wall in front of us.
After reaching Haowang Tower we’ll finish the walk by following a paved park trail down to the carpark.
