Gubeikou Great Wall hike, 2015/02/08
Fifteen photos from a walk along the Gubeikou Great Wall on a beautiful blue sky day.
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The Gubeikou Great Wall is one of our favourite spots for a relaxed walk along the Great Wall, because of the long views of the old wall running through the hills. Perfect on a blue sky day!
The Great Wall here is mostly in unrestored condition, with a few sections and parts of towers shored up and braced to prevent collapse.
The hills here are also not super steep, which mean this hike is not too tough, particularly if you walk a lot.
The hike started off with a short stroll through a tidy village, and then we climbed up a steep trail to get to the wall. Almost right away we were treated to superb views: the rooftops of the little village below, the tall mountains on the other side of the river, and there was a lot of Great Wall in view already.
We hiked along the wall for about 20 minutes before we reached a spot where we made a detour through the hills to join on to the main line of wall in the area.
We then followed the wall for a long way, peaking at the 24-Eyes Tower, the highest in this area. On a day when it's clear, the views from the tower are excellent: back behind us, the whole line of wall we walked earlier, and further on the towers of Jinshanling and Simatai.
After enjoying the views, we walked back down a short way to find the trail that would take us to the end of the hike. See all the photos below!
At the beginning of the hike we could see the western side of the Gubeikou Great Wall across the river.
Today our hike took us along the Great Wall on the east side of the river.
Looking back along the trail we could see some impressive mountains, with a steep line of Great Wall going straight up.
It's good to get out for a hike one of Beijing's lovely blue sky days.
We took a hillside detour for a short while, linking up with the Great Wall seen in the distance.
Almost finished the detour.
Another shot looking back behind us.
One of the highest towers on the hike.
A crumbling tower with a caved in roof. A nice spot for a snack break.
A view of the wall on the other side of the tower. We walked all the way along this line of Great Wall, all the way up to the high tower in the middle of the shot.
The strong foundation of an old Great Wall tower.
Walking back.
Blue sky over the Great Wall.
A view from the windows of an old tower.
After climbing up to the highest tower in the area we walked back down a short way to finish the hike. In this photo you can see all the way back to where we started the hike, atop the hills in the middle distance.