Beijing Hikers in the Los Angeles Times

Beijing Hikers: a recommended way to relax in Beijing!

Beijing Hikers was mentioned in part of a longer article by Beijing resident Susan Spanos about how to relax in Beijing during the countdown to the 2008 Olympics.

The full text of what was written about us is below; head to the L.A. Times website to read more about things to do outside of Beijing’s Sixth Ring Road.

Historical loop

My favorite weekend trips were with Beijing Hikers, founded in 2001 and dedicated to helping people, especially English-speaking tourists and expatriates (anyone can come, though) discover what there is to see beyond the Sixth Ring Road. Hikes can be easy saunters suitable for families or tough, long, steep climbs on wild sections of the Great Wall.

I did the three-mile Silver Pagoda Loop on a beautiful spring morning. The countryside through which our bus passed had the same well-worn feeling as much of rural China, and small towns looked half-deserted, drained by the gravitational pull of the city.

We started from the pretty hamlet of Haizi, which has a 300-year-old opera stage, tucked deep in the mountains of Changping County.

Leader Huijie Sun took about 30 people on the Silver Pagoda Loop hike. As she walked, she tied scraps of red cloth to tree branches to make sure people behind her didn’t lose their way. We crossed a ridge and passed an abandoned quarry on the route to the top of Silver Mountain. The summit affords a fine view of the pagoda park in the valley below, where many of the Buddhist temples date from the Jin Dynasty (1115 to 1234).

From the L.A. Times, by Susan Spanos.