Hike! Great Wall Trip

[Zhongguoist]

Hello!

I've got a friend visiting in a few weeks and I'd like to do the great wall with them. I am currently in Tianjin and I want to go somewhere from Tianjin, not having to go to Beijing then change etc/get on a tour there. I have already done the Jinshanling to Simatai hike which I thought was ace. I was wondering what the Tianjin Great Wall was like? Also, I'd be happy to do the jinshanling-simatai hike again but I want to go via Hebei. From Chengde in Hebei how do you get to Jinshanling? And from Simatai how to get back to Chengde? I like the idea of going to unspoiled great walls. Also what's the earliest possible time that you can start the great wall hike(providing that you haven't stayed the night as I did last time) from Jinshanling?
Any other suggestions of different great walls to go to?

Thanks!

[Bryan]

Hi, Zhongguoist,

Thanks for your questions!

Since you're in Tianjin, I highly recommend you visit the Great Wall at Huangyaguan and Taipingzhai. It's a very interesting and beautiful area, and the Great Wall there is really special. A good place to look for more information on Huangyaguan is the Great Wall Marathon Website. They have maps, descriptions, and photos. You can also find some basic info (and one humorous error) on the Wall in Tianjin at Travel China Guide, and more at China Travel Expert. The area is very mountainous and, while the Wall has been restored in the Huangyaguan area, it's not hard to find original areas too.

Here's a diagram of the location of the Great Wall in Tianjin.


It's easy to get to Jinshanling from Chengde. Just take the Jing Cheng expressway (S102) South towards Beijing. Whey you approach the Gubeikou area, there is a road to the left and a sign for Jinshanling. From there it's just a few minutes to the entrance. Returning from Simatai, just take the road to the Jing Cheng expressway, turn right (north), go through Gubeikou, and reverse your path.

I believe you can start your hike as early as you wish. I arrived at Jinshanling in the middle of the night one time and there was nobody or nothing (except for the total darkness) to keep me out!

[Kim]

I agree that Huangyaguan is a very nice place at a good section to visit since you are in Tianjin. Furthermore the road to Huangyaguan is very good compared to other places I've been to so it's easy to get there.
Do you have access to a car? Then I can recommend you some very nice places in the Tangshan and Qinhuangdao area, but they are a bit difficult to get to without a car.

The Great Wall Marathon website seems to have a map of the Huangyaguan area, but for some reason the website is banned in China so I can only access it through a proxy server which doesn't allow downloading large files. I would be very happy if someone would download and send me the map of the area if it contains some Great Wall info.

webmaster@greatwall.se

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Kim

I agree that Huangyaguan is a very nice place at a good section to visit since you are in Tianjin. Furthermore the road to Huangyaguan is very good compared to other places I've been to so it's easy to get there.
Do you have access to a car? Then I can recommend you some very nice places in the Tangshan and Qinhuangdao area, but they are a bit difficult to get to without a car.

The Great Wall Marathon website seems to have a map of the Huangyaguan area, but for some reason the website is banned in China so I can only access it through a proxy server which doesn't allow downloading large files. I would be very happy if someone would download and send me the map of the area if it contains some Great Wall info.

webmaster@greatwall.se

Sent 3 PDFs

I have no idea why that site would be banned.

[Kim]

Thank you very much Bryan

Some times it's difficult to say exactly why a website is banned, but in this case it might be because of the maps. The guys in Beijing are not so happy about people posting maps and gps coordinates on the internet.

Where is Taipingzhai? Is that the Marathon section?

[Bryan]

From what I understand, it is about one to two hours hike on the Great Wall southeast of Huangyaguan. I could not find it on the map in a place that corresponds to the two sites I sent Zhongguoist the link for. There also seems to be a Taipingzhai in Hebei, but it appears to be a different place: http://www.maplandia.com/china/hebei...i/taipingzhai/

[Kim]

It's a bit unclear but it seems like the Taipingzhai and Huangyaguan section meet at the Widow's Tower which you pass on the normal tourist route.
Seems to be some nice unrestored section close to Huangyaguan so I better have a look one day. My Great Wall wish list seems to grow bigger and bigger every day

[Zhongguoist]

Wow loads of very helpful answers already! Thanks everyone for your input.

In regards to the car thing, I don't have a car and I can't drive.

I don't know where I saw it but on one website I saw there was something about going from TaipingZhai to Huangyaguan but I can't remember it. Has anyone done that? And if I did it how would I get from JiXian To TaipingZhai? What's the Zhai of TaiPing Zhai?(I assume the Taiping is 太平）. I ideally want to go to a bit of the wall which isn't as 'restored' which is why I really liked the Jinshanling-Simatai wall.

If I went to the great wall(ie TaipingZhai - Huangyaguan) could I do it in one day and be back in Tianjin by night? I'm thinking about whether it's worth going the night before and staying in a hotel but obviously there are financial considerations and my friend on the first day will just have arrived from the UK on a long flight, so I'd rather go the next day early if it's possible.

[Kim]

I'm not very familiar with that area and I'm not sure where exactly Taipingzhai is.
If you have a look at Google Earth (40°14'37.33"N 117°26'20.32"E) you will see that there is a lot of unrestored parts of the Great Wall around Huangyaguan and you can probably get a taxi or one of the locals to take you there.

According to my knowledge of the public transportation in China it will probably take a few hours to go from Tianjin to Jixain and maybe one hour from Jixian to Huangyaguan so I would recommend that you stay the night at a hotel close to the Great Wall - hotels in China are very cheep so you can probably find a hotel for about 200 RMB or less. Otherwise your time on the Great Wall will be very short.

[Kim]

From CNadventure:

We will drive to Taipingzhai and hike for about one hour westward to Huangyaguan.