The main focus of this hike is the “V-shaped” Great Wall, but we’ll hike some of the other wall in the area as well. We’ll see both early and later Ming-style Great Wall—some untouched and crumbling, and some that’s been repaired and restored. As well as the wall, we’ll hike through some small hamlets and villages.

Bricks in the Wall

The Great Wall bricks produced in this area are supposed to have been well known for their high quality, and have shown up in use at other sections of Great Wall in neighbouring Miyun District. This is known because of distinctive stamps or markings on the bricks, of which we’ll see plenty on this hike, too.

Some of the bricks in the wall here were repurposed by locals. In the villages in the area you’ll spot suspiciously similar bricks used in the older houses, and we saw one building hidden up a valley that looked to have been built entirely out of Great Wall bricks. Cheeky!

The hike

A train line comes through the pass in the mountains here, and we’ll start the hike not far from the train tracks.

The old dirt roads that connected the little villages in this area with the main road have been concreted over for the convenience of the villagers. They’re too narrow for our bus to use, though, so we’ll be using the roads to walk in and warm up.

We’ll start off hiking on one of the concrete roads. Just before arriving at one of those little villages we’ll turn up a valley and hike up to the first part of the wall featured on this visit.

A dirt track leads up the valley, into chestnut orchards, eventually reaching a low line of old Great Wall. On the way up the valley we’ll spot some of the old Great Wall bricks in the terracing.

This first part of wall looks like it was built during the earlier part of the Ming Dynasty. It’s constructed mostly out of rocks and stones. It’s hard to tell for sure though, as the battlements have all fallen down (or have been used to build terraces!) and what’s left of the wall is covered by thorny bushes. We’ll hike by the foundations of towers – probably added later in the Ming Dynasty, and also mostly fallen down – following the wall as it winds along a low ridgeline.

Further along, we’ll hike down from the wall and into one of the larger villages in the area. It’s not too large—maybe just 30 houses, with a lot of them looking empty.

The road into the village goes through the Great Wall, so there’s a little gap in the wall here.

We’ll find our way back on to the wall on the other side of the village and follow it up into the hills to get to the V-shaped Great Wall.

The V-shaped Great Wall is where the hike starts to get seriously steep.

On our first visits here (2013) the V-shaped Great Wall was still rough and unrepaired. Repairs were made sometime between 2022 and 2024, concentrating mostly on the V part.

To get up to the V, we’ll follow a well-formed hill trail, arriving on the wall at the perfect spot for a picture of the Big V.

From there we’ll hike up to the top tower, passing the top of the southern limb of the V.

From the top tower the wall continues up to a peak, getting smaller and lower and narrower, and finally disappearing into the foliage.

We used to hike over the peak and out the other side, but what we’re going to do on this visit is hike over to the other side of the V for a look at some of the rough and unrepaired wall.

Just after passing the top tower we’ll climb down off the wall and follow some scratchy and slippery trails over to the tower at the top of the northern limb of the V. The tower over here has also been repaired, but beyond that the wall is wild and untouched … and very steep!

Heading down the wild part is one way to finish the wall section of the hike.

Heading down the northern side of the V is the other way to finish.

Both options are tricky!

Hiking down from the V is shorter. It’s not too long until you’re down on the ground. But the repaired wall here has little stones and rocks on it, which makes it slippery, and there’s not a lot to hold on to for balance.

Hiking down the wild part takes longer, and the views are better. There are side walls to hold on to for balance, but the footing is uneven, with big steps and small footholds in places.

Either way, we end up on another of the small concrete roads, and we’ll then hike all the way out to the bus. (Hopefully the bus will be able to drive in to the middle village, but the roads here are narrow. If the bus can’t drive in, we’ll have a long walk out.)

The old Bricks in the Wall hike

In November 2025, after a 7-year gap between hikes here, we did a scouting trip to check out the trail. We found that the last section of the hike had been damaged by the flooding in summer 2025, with a key section buried under a slip and the path over the river scoured away entirely. We’re not including that part in this hike—the trail down to the river is so overgrown it’s impassable, and if we follow the wall along instead there are several dangerous sections, with the last part of the trail covered by a tangle of trees washed down by a landslip.