JanShanLing - GuBeiKou - Trip Report

[lecter]

Here's an opening image.....
I'll fill in the details over the next day or so...

http://upload.pbase.com/edit_gallery/lecter/goubeikou_ has all the images. Will post a bunch here as part of the report.... Quite a story with the Military Base stuck smack in the middle of the trek!!

Rob

[Bryan]

That's a great starting photo. It looks like you had nice weather for your trek. That's good. I look forward to your full report!

[Kim]

Excellent photos on your PBase site - a real pleasure to watch and very good quality

[lecter]

Here I go again....... off to the Great Wall of China
While I am here I am not going to let the opportunity go. Soon I may change focus, but I am enjoying the exercise, the challenge and the sheer rediculous majesty of this sublime edifice!!
I've messed about in the Simatai area a lot, and have done the JinShanling to Simitai walk, which is very popular with tourists and locals alike. It alone is a decent hike for an old man like me! While on this section a month ago, we happened across a fellow that was hiking in the opposite direction. He mentioned that he was thinking about walking the next section. It was news to me that you could walk that way, so I did some research. Yes, as you guessed, there is another cool section of wall to traverse, in sort of familiar territory too....
As usual, the planning is tougher than the walk. The hotels were not answering and there seemed to be no easy answers.... Well, one likes a challenge,,,
The Undulating wall with Towers

We headed off in the afternoon with a thought of getting sunrise and sunset from the same parts of the wall. My companion was not keen on a 4:30am start, but fortunately the sun is up much later this time of year. But man, it's getting cold!
We had our first hurdle at the Hotel which was essentially empty. There were no rooms available. Communication issues aside, it seemed to me that they were just being difficult. We made the executive decision to get up on the wall in the failing light and see what's up there. We'd sort accomodation out once we returned in the late twilight.
On my previous Janshanling visit, we'd gotten up on the wall and headed east. This time we were going to go west. It looked all downhill from the apex of the Janshanling-Simatai route, but, as always, it's not as it seems in China.
The initial climb is quite a brisk one. Getting on to the wall is relatively easy, straight up a man made road to a section of the wall that's been completely restored (or butchered depending on your perspective). We headed up past the Cable Car that heads in a more easterly direction and past some "shops" of a fashion where vendors lived and breathed the wall. As usual we were jumped by a ruddy faced "Guide" who wanted to help us all the way. She never really stopped yapping despite our polite, yet direct, assertations to the negative about her constant carping for a book sale. These ladies are nothing, if not persistent, and she kept on with us all the way to the photography spots and back. More on her, our agreement and what we may have regretted later.
If you look closely at the next picture, it's taken looking back east. In the far far distance you can see the Simatai ridge heading up and over the horizon. My thoughts are always along the lines of "Mad Buggers" when I see this massive edifice stretching on and on into the distance across what had to be, some of the worst terrain ever for build a wall.
Looking East from the Janshanling Section of the Wall

Now Simatai looks close, doesn't it? Well it is, as the crow flies, but traversing the 28 odd towers up and down the ridges and valleys makes it a four to five hour hump. Fabulous!!
Looking west, we got some inkling of what was going to be in store for us in the wee hours of the morrow.
Western Outlook

I'd read on the Great Wall Forum that there was a section of the wall that was blocked off due to the proximity of a military installation. There was, of course, a way to loop around this and I thought, quite incorrectly that it would be clearly marked and easy to find once we came across the offending section. Ha!! You'd think I know better. Well in the interests of safety and security I decided to enter into some banter with the Sales Lady who was still chirping chatting carping and bugging us incessantly. I inquired as to the price of being guided all the way into GuBeiKou. She gave me a price of Y100 for her husband to take us there. This seemed ok and in line with what we'd paid at Beijing Lou, so I tentatively agreed on a morning arrangement. All the while I tried to take some photos of the wall in the golden Light.
Dusk

Dusk fell quickly and it was time to head back and sort out the Accomodation issues. My colleague agreed on a guided effort in the morning and then she tried a little divide and conquer on us and started in on him about the relative merits of her husbands expertise. "It's a long way, the agreement is only for one hour, you'll need five hours, do you want me to carry your tripod" etc, etc. The upshot was that she wanted to renegotiate the agreement and thought that he looked like an easier mark. The end result for her was a two hour climb up the wall, a nice chat to my friend, Matthias and I and no sales of books, drinks or commission based guiding. She then tried to recant and repent by assuring us that it was just Y100 for the whole trip, silly her, you just "misunderstood me", "I misunderstood you", "Are you sure you wouldn't like a book?"
While we were on the Wall getting our images and exercise, the driver was active on our behalf with the surly one from the Hotel Office. He had managed to convince them that we were not as scary as she thought and that we needed rooms for the night. As we trudged down the final pathways, out of the clutches of the sales lady from hell and into the night, we looked at the hotel which looked abandoned and cold and we thought about food and a decent sleep. "Let's skip this place and head into the megalopolis of GuBeiKou for the night". Boy that sounded like a good idea!!! We arrived at the car with a shivering driver and we told him that we wanted to find a place in GuBeiKou for the night. Surely there was a five star establishment there.
Well, GuBeiKou at night is a little scary. It's the gateway between Beijing and HuBei Province. The Wall comes down here and then back up the other side of the valley (now that looks like a decent trek!!). Our driver didn't know the area so after a few hiccups we stop at a very dodgy looking establishment on the main road. It seemed to be a restaurant with rooms upstairs. Now to say it looked a bit run down is like saying the Titanic is a little bit sunk. Anyways, tired, hungry and not to be deterred, we are invited to check out the plush surroundings. We wanted a room each (the Snoring fiasco of the last trip was not to be repeated) and we each got one of the small but functional accomodations. The beds were hard, the pillows stained and the toilet was REAL!!! Very important this. It had a heater, a TV and warm blankets. Perfect!! Don't think my mother would be keen, but for us it looked like heaven. So downstairs we went for a feed. We were too lazy to look elsewhere for food.
The Restaurant

The food was excellent!!!!

[Bryan]

Very interesting and entertaining post, lecter. Excellent photos, too. Thanks!

I almost stayed at that hotel in Gubeikou but luckily I found a much nicer one. It's at the entrance to the Wohushan Great Wall, across the bridge which is behind and to the right side of the hotel where you stayed. It was nice enough to make me want to spend an extra night there before heading off to Jinshanling.

Gubeikou Emperor's Palace Hotel

Looking forward to your next post!

[chithanh119]

Nice trip

[robert_loken]

Wow - amazingly beautiful pictures! Looks like you've had a great time

[andarchen]

I just added two ancient fortresses at Gubeikou in my GW map version 2 recently, here is simple introduction for them :

As the picture below , Red lane is main GW , two fortresses arounding walls indicating with white lanes and ping lane were built on different period ,the small fortress was built on Jing Dynasty (1115 - 1234) and large fortress(below the small one ) was built on Ming Dynasty(1368 - 1644). Red and white lane were built on Beiqi Dynasty (550 - 577),and pink lane was built on Ming Dynasty. In addtion to western wall beside river was ruinned , all walls are still existing now .

Ming's ruler expanded small fortress to be big one , and digged a pass through hill as the channel between two fortresses .
channel pictures as below are past and current looks respectively .

Attached kmz about Gubeikou in here is not available, please download my map version 2 in map forum.