Chenjiapu Great Wall
A moderately difficult hike that follows a line of wild wall up to a tall tower with 360° views of mountains, valleys, small villages, and a long line of wall heading high into the hills. Some sections extremely tricky underfoot.
Booking info
Wednesday, January 21
¥420 / ¥380 for members
Payment in advance required for this hike. More about payments
Bring your passport / ID card with you on this hike in case the border crossing guards decide they want to check us on the way home
Route update—we might need to go in the reverse direction, starting at the village on the Hebei side and then finishing in the village on the Beijing side. The route on the Great Wall will be the same.
We’ve had a variety of hikes here with names like the Middle Route of Switchback Great Wall and Stone Valley Great Wall. It’s also known as the Chen Castle Great Wall, which is another way you can translate the name of the closest village.
Starting the hike here on the Hebei side of the border means we’re up on the wall a little bit faster, and we’ll be hiking on the wall for a larger percentage of the whole hike.
Starting the hike on the Hebei side of the border also means we’ll need to pack our passports, just in case we get checked at the tiny border crossing checkpoint here.
The hike
We start the hike near the temple in Chenjiapu Village, taking a short walk up through the village and then hiking dirt tracks through fields to get up on to the Great Wall.
This first part of the wall is in rough condition, broken down and rocky, and there’s just one intact tower.
Further on, though, is the General’s Tower. We’ll follow the wall up to the General’s Tower, with a few short off-wall detours around tricky spots.
At an elevation of 1,040m, the General’s Tower has superb views of all the Great Wall in the area.
To the east we’ll be able to spot the eastern side of the Stone Valley Great Wall and possibly parts of the Badaling Ancient Great Wall; to the south we’ll see the higher parts of this line Great Wall, and, if it’s a clear day, the High Tower on a faraway peak.
With line-of-sight to all that Great Wall, and a not-too-long hike down to the old fort at Stone Valley Village, this tower was probably the command post for the wall in the area—and that’s why it’s named “General’s Tower”.
After a break at the General’s Tower we’ll continue along the Great Wall, hiking down to a dip in the mountains.
On this part of the hike, a look back offers superb views, and there are a couple of great spots to get a photo of the General’s Tower framed in gaps in the battlements.
We’ll continue along to the dip, a pass in the mountains guarded by two mostly-intact towers.
At this point, depending on how we’re going, we might add on another hill to get views of more of the wall in the higher mountains, or we might head down from the wall.
Both of the options finish with a hike on trails down through forest and out to Shixiaguan Village, a small settlement on the Beijing side of the hills.
About the Great Wall here
Most of the wall we’ll see on the hike today can be dated to the later part of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), in particular the large brick towers and crenellated side walls.
The Ming wall partially covers an older stone and rock wall that’s said to be from the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577). The Ming Wall forks from the older wall just after the General’s Tower, and sharp eyes can spot the line of rocks and stones that mark the route of the first wall built in this area.
About the village
The village is commonly known as Chenjiapu. But the last character in the name (堡) is one of those that can have a double meaning and pronunciation.
The first entry in the dictionary has it pronounced as bǎo, meaning “an earthwork / castle / position of defense / stronghold / used in place names, often as phonetic bǎo for ‘burg’ or ‘bad’”. So that’s where the name ‘Chen Castle’ comes from.
But it’s also sometimes pronounced as pù, which is a variant of 铺, used in place names or meaning “plank bed / place to sleep / shop / store / (old) relay station”.
We’re not sure if there was actually a castle here, given that the village is outside the main line of the Great Wall. The main ‘old’ thing in the village nowadays is the sometimes-open-usually-closed Dragon King Temple.
