Still smiling after the 14th kilometre at Simatai

He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man – 毛泽东 Mao Zedong

I crossed off one more thing on my “things to do in my lifetime” list today: hiking 长城 the Great Wall in China. Several sections of the Great Wall are accessible from Beijing: the most popular is Badaling 八达岭 which is the Disneyland section - overrun with tourists and fully restored – complete with night lights and hand railings. Craig, Chris, Puja, and I were heading 3 hours outside the city to 金山岭 Jinshanling, a considerably more overrun section which is also the starting point for a 10km hike to the 司马台 Simatai section of the Wall. We also planned to go up and down the Simatai section, bringing the total planned distance for the day to approximately 20km.

Note: a picture is worth a thousand words and there are at least that many words in this entry, so if you don’t have time you can see photos (all 155 of them!) here.

The morning was off to a good start when we were promptly picked up by 刘师傅, Driver Liu who, during the drive, cheerfully expressed his admiration for us for attempting the hike. Apparently he’s had passengers who called him back to the drop-off point because they weren’t able to finish the hike. Upon arriving at 金山岭 at 9am, he kindly made sure we bought tickets and wrote down his cell phone number before waving goodbye and saying he will pick us up at 司马台 in the afternoon. But before you can actually walk along the Great Wall, you have to hike up to the Wall first. The steep uphill hike was off to an interesting start when guards pointed us down a trail that was so dug up it was more ditch than path. As we teetered along the remains of the trail, a worker digging the ditch looked up and made a smoking motion – trying to bum a cigarette off us – as we passed by. We tried to ignore him but when he shouted at us, I shouted back “我们真得没有，我们不抽烟 - we really don’t have any, we don’t smoke!” Surprisingly, he responded by pointing after me and declaring in an astonished tone: “她是中国人 - she’s Chinese!”

The wall loomed larger as we got closer to the entrance and it became apparent that this isn’t so much a Great Wall as it is a bloody Amazing Wall. It was unbelievable to finally be on the top, surrounded by a panorama of blue sky, grey mountain, and green hillside. And of course, there was the Wall itself, curving along the mountain ridge as far as the eye can see.

First order of business was to call Canada. Yes, there was cell phone reception and it was pretty sweet to say “hi ma, guess where I’m calling from? I’m on top of the Great Wall!” For the next few hours, we were the only ones on the Great Wall, save for the occasional guard or tout trying to push “I hiked the Great Wall!” tshirts, water, or postcards on us. It’s amazing to find touts on this section since the condition of the wall didn’t make for easy hiking – sections were on a very steep incline and the stony steps, when they weren’t reduced to rubble, were very narrow and high. Forget deterring marauding Mongolian invaders, the Wall would deter people defending the Wall from going to work every day.

One can gauge progress on a Great Wall hike by counting the number of watchtowers you pass through. According to Lonely Planet, Jinshanling has 24 watchtowers but since we started in the middle of that section, we probably went through about 12 towers before starting the Simatai section. Watchtowers are also good places to rest - provided you’re not in one that smells of urine (while you are forbidden to spit on the Wall, nothing says you can’t pee on this UNESCO World Heritage site). The condition of watchtowers ranged from being in fairly good shape to being in ruins. We even climbed on the roof of one for lunch – before we were kicked off by a guard who told us we weren’t allowed to be up there. The same guard later caught Puja and Craig again for climbing along a broken ridge. I bet he thought we were such troublemakers, damn 老外 laowai – foreigners – climbing like monkeys all over the place.

The atmosphere of the Wall changes as you progress from Jinshanling to Simatai. Jinshanling is older, less restored – and consequently has fewer tourists - and the route mostly meanders up and down in great big waves along the mountain ridge. Simatai is much more restored; it was hard to believe we were on the same wall when the stony rubble we were picking over for the past 4 hours transformed into an evenly paved surface. But any gain in the improved walking surface disappeared in face of the fact that Simatai is entirely uphill - 16 watchtowers of very steep staircase. The section passing through the last 4 watchtowers is so steep that it’s known as the Stairway to Heaven (insert Zeppelin reference here), partly for the sensational view at the top and partly for the perilous journey to reach the last watchtower.

However, a guard and chain blocks the rest of the route beyond the 12th watchtower, along with a sign warning of danger and stating that anyone caught will be fined 200 RMB – translation: “200RMB (20 USD) entry fee beyond this point”. The catch is to arrive very early in the morning before the guard arrives and of course have 200 RMB ready to hand over for the climb back down. Since it was already 4pm, we didn’t reach heaven today but it was a sweet journey nonetheless.

After pounding stone wall for the nearly part of 7 hours, there was no better way to get down than to give our feet a break by riding a zipline from base of the wall over the Simatai reservoir. Then it was just a short boat ride to the other side to meet Driver Liu at the parking lot where he drove four 很累但是累得很高兴 - exhausted but exhilarated - hikers back to Beijing.

Quotes from the day
Um, I guess this is a bad time to mention that I’m afraid of heights
- a wobbly-kneed Chris looking down from the top of Jinshanling

You know graffiti’s old when it’s written in traditional characters.
- Craig

we’re either on the Stairway to Heaven or the Highway to Hell
- a very tired Chris, around the 14th kilometre

If we take the zipline, we can bypass the hawkers.
The hookers?
- Craig and a confused Puja