After a rainy week in Beijing we were happy to see clear skies forecast for our walk on the wall between Jiankou and Mutianyu.

The views were great – blue skies, green hills, and long views of the wall. Click through to see the photos!

Merck Group had their regional conference in Beijing, and they asked us to help them bring the team to the Great Wall for a look at Chinese history.

We put together a hike on the Gubeikou Great Wall, showing them all the key features along the way, plus an historically-themed treasure hunt in and around the temples of Gubeikou Village.

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We do quite a few Level 3+ hikes in this area. Today we were taking on the toughest version, walking the whole stretch of the Switchback Great Wall instead of just the first section.

We rate it a Level 4 usually, but with the hot weather it could have rated a Level 5.

The wall in this area has some very steep sections—big climbs that feel tough in normal conditions felt extra tough in the heat.

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The Tengger Desert is one of our favourite places to go outside of Beijing. As well as being able to trek, camp, and ride camels and jeeps way into the depths of the desert, you can also get a look at the pyramid-shaped tombs of the Western Xia Dynasty.

This visit was a private trip for a group of friends from Chengdu. Click through to see all the photos!

Nearby the Huanghuacheng Great Wall is an old walled village, which was once a barracks for Ming Dynasty soldiers. Somewhat strangely, it’s outside of the wall.

On this hike we start with a look about the village, and then climb up to one of the peaks of the Huanghuacheng Great Wall. We then follow the wall through the hills to finish by the Huanghuacheng reservoir.

Click through to see 14 photos from the hike!

We went out to Qinghai last year for a scouting trip and put together a trip that covers the large variety of sights and places in the area—the sights of nature, like Qinghai Lake and the snow mountains of the Qilian Range; and historically important places like Kumbum Monastery.

Click through to see 65 photos from the trip we did at the end of May.

During the Dragonboat Festival HolidayWe headed out to the Great Wall Spur for a hot weather camping trip.

Click through to see 15 photos from the trip!

We love hiking on the Great Wall in this area, and we also know a spot for camping that is just perfect. We got lucky with the weather on this visit, too – clear blue skies to go with the amazing views of mountains and Great Wall.

Click through to see photos of the campsite, wild scenery, and rough Great Wall.

Cuandixia is a beautiful and historic village west of Beijing that dates back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. The main attraction is the village itself, a collection of stone courtyard-style houses built on a hillside in a narrow valley. The village has had the tourism treatment over the last few years, but it’s still a lovely spot to visit, especially if you know the trails in the hills near the village.

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The hike at Yajishan is fun by itself, with a long stair climb up to the temples followed by a scenic walk through the hills behind the temple.

The annual temple fair makes it even more lively, as people from the surrounding countryside squeeze in to check out the action.

Click through to see photos from the hike and the fair!

The trail from Hemp Village to the Gubeikou Great Wall is long but fairly mellow, without a lot of steep climbs. The views are also excellent, particularly so on the clear and beautiful day we visited.

Click through to see seventeen photos from the hike!

The weather was just beautiful for this walk on the Great Wall, with clear and blue skies over the Great Wall and green hills. We walked through the farmland around the Walled Village and then up a steep trail to get on top of the Huanghuacheng Great Wall.

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We’ve done a clean up hike for Earth Day every year since 2009, heading out to hiking trails that have been somewhat spoiled by a buildup of trash and packing out loads of litter for disposal in a more appropriate location.

This year we teamed up again with Gung Ho! Pizza to make our ninth annual Earth Day clean up hike part of the Beijing Earth Day Festival.

We found less rubbish on the wall compared to last year, and that meant our clean up crew was able to get pretty much 100% of it, leaving the Great Wall clean and green again.

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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.

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The Heituo Mountain hike is one of the more recent additions to our repertoire of hikes, and it took us a little while to find all the trails. This time we walked all the trails we planned to instead of making off-track adventures, and can report back that it is a solid Level 5+ hike.

Click through to see the photos from the steep hike up to the top, our high-altitude picnic area, and the long walk through the wild valleys around the back of the mountain.