After the long walk into Hemp Village we hiked up into the hills to get a look at the Great Wall, following field trails beside the wall before climbing up on to it at Gubeikou. With lovely clear skies and long views this was a great day out on the Great Wall.

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The Great Prayer Festival is an important date on the Tibetan calendar, and the ceremonies at Labrang Monastery in Xiahe are particularly well-attended. We mixed in with the crowds of pilgrims at the festival to see the ‘unveiling of the Buddha’, plus performances of the Cham Dance and various temple rituals.

With the monks in full costume, and the crowds of locals all there for the festival, the trip was colourful and exciting – click through to see all the photos.

We made our Moss Mountain hike a little longer by starting at Zhuangdaokou instead of walking right up to the Walled Village. Hiking a bit further was the right choice on this day, because the weather was perfect.

Click through to see the photos of hills, mountains, cliffs, and the stairs to nowhere.

See a set of 30 photos from our February 2017 trip to Yu County—ancient walled towns and villages, traditional parades and performances, and some short hikes in the countryside.

We had a lovely and mild blue sky day for this Spring Festival walk along the Great Wall at Gubeikou, giving excellent views of the wall and surrounding mountains.

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The White River hike is one of our favourites for a winter walk, with the tall cliffs and scenery given a different look by all the ice.

This year we thought we we might no be able to do the hike at all – the warmer than usual winter meaning the ice didn’t freeze as thick as we need for a safe hike.

We’d cancelled our first two attempts at it, but the third time was the charm. Click through to see some photos.

We put on a variety of hikes during Spring Festival, and on this trail we were in and out of shaded valleys, and making some big climbs to see stretches of the Great Wall in the area.

In the shade or the wind it was very cold, but when out in the sun (or while making one of those big climbs) it felt rather mild.

Click through to see photos of valleys, cliffs, Great Wall … and a duck-billed platypus?!

For our last hike of the year on the lunar calendar we headed out to Stone Valley for a 10km walk in the hills and on the Great Wall. The air was cold, the skies were clear, and the views were superb – click through to see the photos!

We arrived out at Hemp Village to find snow on the ground, with more still falling. Quite a surprise, after the clear blue skies of the previous day.

It’s always fun to see snow on the wall, and we had a great hike – click through to see the photos.

This hike was a last-minute replacement for the White River ice hike, which we weren’t able to do because of thin ice. It worked out as a great alternative, especially with the heavy fall of snow on the day – beautiful!

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For various reasons we hadn’t hiked on the west side of Gubeikou for quite a while. One of those reasons was that the hike was too short! Over winter we went out a few times to scout out new trails, and the result of the scouting was the Gubeikou West Circuit trail, a new version of our hikes in the area that gives a good 14km hike with a lot of great views.

Click through to see 17 photos from a winter walk in the area.

The weather was perfect for this walk on the Huanghuacheng Great Wall – cold but not too cold, and lovely and clear.

Click through to see sixteen photos from our hike up to the wall via the Walled Village, and more from atop the wall itself.

Snow was falling as we hiked the Stone Valley Great Wall in early January, and we got some great photos – click through to take a look!

Our Hemp Village to Jinshanling hike starts off with a walk into a remote farming village. We then hike up into the hills behind the village to reach the unrepaired western end of the Jinshanling Great Wall. With a bit of snow still in the hills this hike was very picturesque – click through to have a look at the photos.

On Christmas Day we hiked the Great Wall from Jiankou to Mutianyu, finishing up with a big meal followed by our dumpling-making contest – click through to see 19 photos from the hike.