Middle Route of Switchback Great Wall, 2015/10/25
Twenty-plus photos from a hike along ‘wild’ Great Wall in Yanqing County.
For this hike we headed out to Yanqing County to walk a stretch of ‘wild’ unrestored Great Wall.
There’s quite a lot of Great Wall in Yanqing County, including the very famous (and crowded!) Badaling section. The wall continues west from there, and just a few mountains further over there are stretches of wall that are much quieter and hardly ever visited - like this one!

Getting started on the hike, some feeling the cold more than others!

We followed a road further into the hills, an easy warm up for the steep climbs coming.

The start of the uphill path that leads to the wall.

That’s us!

Onto the scenic part of the hike, following a trail up a wooded valley.

Hiking further into the forest.

Almost up to the Great Wall.

Made it!

We followed the wall further up, to the higher parts

Hiking on a steep section.

At the top of the steep section the views open up.

A broken part of the wall.

Bricks underfoot, where one side of the wall has collapsed.

Taking a break before the next steep climb.

Hikes making their way up to the General's Tower, the highest point on the hike.

Closer to the tower.

The arched doorway is all that's left of this tower.