Camping at the Great Wall Spur, 2017/4/15
See 21 photos from an overnighter on the Great Wall.
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As well as blossoms, flowers, and the gradual re-greening of the mountains, spring brings us the camping season!
On this two-day adventure we camped by a tower on the Great Wall Spur, and woke up early to hike over to Jiankou via the Chinese Knot.
It's a fairly big climb up to the wall and our campsite, but we made it easy by using our local friend's donkey team to carry up the tents.
We hiked up to the wall and rested near our campsite. When the tents arrived we set up camp, and then it was dinner time.
The next day we were up early for the hike over to the Jiankou Great Wall. We went via the Chinese Knot, a spot where the inner and outer Great Walls in Beijing join up. A steep climb!
On the way down to the end we spotted some reconstruction work being done on some of the steeper parts of Jiankou's east side. Hope they do a good job of that!
We hiked up a recently cleared hillside. The locals are going to plant fruit trees.
After a steep start, the trail flattened out.
We took a break halfway up the big hill.
We passed a cave on the way up.
Up on the wall.
Lovely sunny weather.
Our local friends helped carry up the camping gear.
Up through the doorway is our camping spot.
Donkeys can’t get up there. It was up to us to get the tents up.
The donkey is about to go off duty.
Setting up camp.
Preparing dinner.
What a spot for a picnic!
Sunset.
Hiking guide Kelvin is boiling the water for noodles.
Father and son.
The next day we packed up, cleaned up, and headed on.
Up on the high point of the second day’s hike.
It was a big climb up, and this was a great spot to take a break.
More donkeys. This team is carrying bricks and other things as part of the restoration of a stretch of the wall at Jiankou.
Wild pear blossoms.