Simatai Great Wall
Gubeikou Great Wall
Simatai Great Wall
Jinshanling Great Wall
2 Days Great Wall Hiking from Gubeikou to Simatai (Eastern part)
The Great Wall Hiking Exploration from Gubeikou to Simatai:trekking on the great wall will be an amazing experience for any of the visitor. China Exploration chose a few good reserved sections to meet the dream of great wall trekker.
D1: Gubeikou-Jinshanling
The driver and the guide will meet you at your hotel around 8:30am and then we drive to Gubeikou section of Great Wall. It will take us about two and half hours to get to a village at the foot of the Great Wall at Gubeikou.
Gubeikou is also the name of the town here, with a long history of over 1,500 years. It served as the northern gate of Beijing in ancient times. Therefore a lot of wars happened in this area when minority groups from the northern part of China tried to conquer Beijing in history. Most parts of today’s Gubeikou Great Wall are still very well preserved, despite a long history. This part of wall was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368AD-1644AD) to defend the capital city of Beijing from the Mongolians living in the north.
Today we are going to hike for totally about 5 hours. We will first walk from the village up to the Great Wall, which takes about 20 minutes and which is quite easy. After getting to the wall, we will hike to the direction of Jinshanling. You will see a lot of watchtowers on the wall which winds like a long snake to the east. A few towers have been repaired in recent years, equipped with lightening rods, in order to protect them from thunderstorms in summer time. Of all the towers here, the most famous one is the 24-eye Tower, which is the biggest one and was originally built with 24 windows, hence the name. Today there are only 16 of them left and we will take a short rest as well as have a picnic lunch at the 24-eye Tower.
After lunch we need to walk down to the bottom of the mountains instead of continuing to trek on the Great Wall because the front area is used by the army and is not open to visitors. During the next one and half hours, we will walk on the mountain path, go through the trees, and pass the corn fields before we return to the wall in the end. Then we arrive at Jinshanling area, which has been being restored ever since early 1980s. After walking around on the Great Wall of Jinshanling as well as taking some photos, we go down the mountains to Jinshan Hotel, where we will stay overnight.
Gubeikou is also the name of the town here, with a long history of over 1,500 years. It served as the northern gate of Beijing in ancient times. Therefore a lot of wars happened in this area when minority groups from the northern part of China tried to conquer Beijing in history. Most parts of today’s Gubeikou Great Wall are still very well preserved, despite a long history. This part of wall was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368AD-1644AD) to defend the capital city of Beijing from the Mongolians living in the north.
Today we are going to hike for totally about 5 hours. We will first walk from the village up to the Great Wall, which takes about 20 minutes and which is quite easy. After getting to the wall, we will hike to the direction of Jinshanling. You will see a lot of watchtowers on the wall which winds like a long snake to the east. A few towers have been repaired in recent years, equipped with lightening rods, in order to protect them from thunderstorms in summer time. Of all the towers here, the most famous one is the 24-eye Tower, which is the biggest one and was originally built with 24 windows, hence the name. Today there are only 16 of them left and we will take a short rest as well as have a picnic lunch at the 24-eye Tower.
After lunch we need to walk down to the bottom of the mountains instead of continuing to trek on the Great Wall because the front area is used by the army and is not open to visitors. During the next one and half hours, we will walk on the mountain path, go through the trees, and pass the corn fields before we return to the wall in the end. Then we arrive at Jinshanling area, which has been being restored ever since early 1980s. After walking around on the Great Wall of Jinshanling as well as taking some photos, we go down the mountains to Jinshan Hotel, where we will stay overnight.
D2: Jinshanling to Simatai (Eastern Part)
From June17, 2010 Simatai section of Great Wall was partially closed for restoration and construction. However, we will take you to hike on the eastern part of Simatai where you will be able to enjoy the beautiful views.
After breakfast, we walk up to Jinshanling Great Wall again and head for the direction of Simatai. Jinshanling Great Wall was constructed in the early Ming Dynasty (1368AD-1644) on the mountain ridges of Big and Small Jinshan mountains, hence the name. With big stones as the foundation, the Great Wall here was built with numerous large bricks.
Qi Jiguang, who was a famous general in the Ming Dynasty, was in charge of the construction of the Great Wall around Beijing. He was from south China and came to Beijing with over thousands of soldiers from his hometown to build the Great Wall. These soldiers named the mountains here Jinshan Mountains, and Jinshan was in fact the name of their hometown. One of the main features of this part of wall is that there are several barrier walls, which are built to help the soldiers defend. Barrier walls were used by the ancient soldiers to defend themselves once the enemies came up to the Great Wall.
Today’s hike will take about 2.5 hours. Most parts where we will trek have been restored and it is not that difficult to walk here. We will pass some of the very famous watchtowers, such as the Big Jinshan Tower, the Small Jinshan Tower, the General Tower, the Dark Tower and so on. Simatai and Jinshanling sections of Great Wall are connected with each other. When getting to Simatai area you can see the faraway western part of Simaitai, where the highest place is Wangjing Tower, which is about 1,000 meters above sea level.
After taking some photos at the eastern part of Simatai, we will walk down on the mountain path to the road where we will meet the driver and have lunch in a nice restaurant at Miyun District on the way back to Beijing. After lunch, we send you directly to your hotel.
