The Silver Pagoda Loop hike is a countryside walk that is reasonably easy, except for the big climb up to the peak of Silver Mountain.

As well as getting a look at the pagodas, we had a glimpse of the lifestyle of Beijing’s rural residents as we walked through small villages.

Click through to see fourteen photos from the hike.

Our five-day trip to Lijiang and Shangri-La hits the key sights of the two towns, and includes walks and side trips that explore more of what is often overlooked on visits to the area.

Click through to see 40-plus photos of Lijiang’s old town and surrounds; Shangri-La and the Songzanlin Monastery; and Yunnan’s local people and culture.

Our five-day trip to Lijiang and Shangri-La hits the key sights of the two towns, and includes walks and side trips that explore more of what is often overlooked on visits to the area. As well as photos from the big camera, we snapped a whole lot of up-close photos with our phones. Click through to see the shots!

The scenery of Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong is amazing, and by visiting in early November we avoided the huge holiday crowds and got a look at the beginning of the autumn colours in the leaves up in the mountains.

Click through to see photos from Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong, plus some extra shots from Songpan and Chengdu.

We call this hike ‘Tomb Raiders’ because we hike over the mountains behind the Ming Tombs area to approach two of the closed tombs from the rear. Click through to see photos of the hill trails and views from the peak.

See 16 photos from a hike in the mountains around Miaofengshan Temple: misty and foggy scenery, with hills full of colourful leaves.

See a selection of photos from the hiking festival – starting shots, mid-hike scenery, and the post-hike picnic and prizegiving.

It was our third hiking festival, as well as our fifteenth birthday party – we’ve been doing hikes and trips since 2001!

We hiked the Great Wall from Jinshanling to Gubeikou on one of the few days during the Golden Week holiday where the weather was acting nice – no smog, no rain, all clear and sunny.

With weather like that, the photos we took turned out well. Click through for a look – you’ll see great shots of the tastefully renovated wall at Jinshanling and the unrestored Great Wall at Gubeikou.

The Jiankou section of the Great wall is one of our favourite places to hike for two reasons: the views are impressive and the area is seldom visited. On this hike we had clear skies and a nice breeze to make for a fantastic day of hiking. Click through to see the photos!

The Yanqing Great Wall and High Tower trail is one of our favourite long walks in Beijing—about 17km long, with a lot of climbing up and down, and great views the whole way.

We lucked out with the weather on this visit as well, coming through a big fog on the drive there and then out into clear skies just in time to start the hike.

Click through to see 27 photos from our trek up to the High Tower.

We made a 5-day trip to check out monasteries, temples, and small villages in the Tibetan area of Gannan, driving more than 900km through the mountains and getting a great look at local Tibetan and Muslim culture.

The scenery was varied: monasteries and mosques, grasslands and mountains, and 4,000m-plus mountains. Click through to see Katie’s photos from the trip!

Forty-seven photos of a late-summer hike through Big Camp Plate Village and up a short stretch of Great Wall, and then down to Hengling Valley to finish. Clear blue skies, great visibility, green hills, and cool temperatures - perfect for a day of hiking.

Click through to see all the photos.

The Walled Village to Huanghuacheng hike is one of our popular Huairou area hikes, offering views of village life and farmland as well as the Great Wall in repaired and unrepaired condition.

In August the ‘wild’ section of the wall here is almost hidden by all the leaves of the trees that cover it – click through to see all the photos.

After a month of near constant on-off rain we were happy to see clear skies forecast for the weekend of our camping trip, and, happily, the forecast were accurate.

Click through to take a look at 20+ photos from a camping trip on the Great Wall in Yanqing County, Beijing.

Jinshanling is one of our favorite restored sections of Great Wall. The views are fantastic and it usually isn’t crowded. We had hot weather on this hike, but the bright blue skies made up for it. Click through for 22 photos from a hike on of the clearest days this year.