We started hiking from one of the small villages at Jiankou.

There was snow left in shady areas.

The trail up to the wall lead us up a valley.

Forested areas just below the Great Wall.

Hiking up past a large boulder.

The pile of rocks is all that’s left of the Great Wall here. From this spot it took us about an hour to climb up to Nine-Eyes Tower.

It’s hard to tell that there was any Great Wall here at all.

Further up, though, the wall was in slightly better condition.

Prayer flags, and a red ribbon.

First to the tower, first to the sunny seats!

Count nine windows on each side of the tower – that’s where the name came from.

The railings were added recently as part of a questionable restoration project.

This part is steeper than it looks – lucky it wasn’t icy!

This part was icy, and we had to walk to the side.

Heading down past a repaired tower.

We hiked down the other side of the hill, on a trail that was steep at times.

We hiked up to Jiankou’s ‘Big West Wall’, using side trails to get around broken sections on cliffs.

Silhouette shot.

We hiked through a birch forest to finish the hike.

The sun was going down as we were finishing the hike.