Hike! Keeping warm at night

[edng]

Planning a winter hike in Feb or March and a couple of nights sleeping in the watch towers

Where are good places in Beijing to get supplies (eg camping stoves and gas canisters for portable cooking, chemical heat packs, thermal heat logs etc etc )

Thanks in advance !

[Bryan]

I have heard Sanfo has good equipment for fair prices.

[edng]

Thanks Bryan..... !

[PWCCA]

A warning, it will be hideously cold in Feb/Mar time, and even colder up in the mountains. I would advise going towards the end of Spring

[edng]

thanks for the advise...! I know what you mean..... fools like me enjoy pain and suffering.

But you're right, camping out even inside of the watch towers in the middle of winter can be horifically painful even with a fire going..... we might have to stay in one of the villages

The main objective is serious photography ... the group of us will be hauling along some serious equiptment during the GW trek (advise on where to get a couple of porters to haul 40-50kg of camera equiptment would help greatly too)

There have been quite a few villages or lodging places mentioned in this forum that are near or along the GW..... if planning on starting around the Jinshanling/Gubeikou area , which is the nearest lodging that will get us up on the western side of Jinshanling BEFORE sunrise ?


Advise is hugely appreciated

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by edng

There have been quite a few villages or lodging places mentioned in this forum that are near or along the GW..... if planning on starting around the Jinshanling/Gubeikou area , which is the nearest lodging that will get us up on the western side of Jinshanling BEFORE sunrise ?

Jinshanling: Jinshan Binguan

Last year I left there very early and made it half way to Simatai before sunrise.

Gubeikou: Gubeikou Emperor's Palace or any hotel at Gubeikou

Forgive me if I could presume to give photographic advice to someone who uses 40-50 kg of photographic equipment! But why would you want to be on the western side of Jinshanling at sunrise? From Xiwuyanlou, the famous photo spot, you're looking east and it seems that the best photos are to be had at sunset.

By the way, I have been at Xiwuyanlou at sunset three different times (2004, 2005, 2008) but never been lucky enough to have really clear weather.

At sunset, foggy weather:


Clearer weather, but not perfect, at mid-day:

[edng]

Thanks so much Bryan

My apologies......... i have used your various links over the last few minutes and my accomodation questions were quite stupid (most of the answers I was looking for are already here in the forum when i searched) ...... apologies again

There should be 4 of us in our party.

Each tripod with a head weighs 5-6kg ......various lenses between 20mm to 100mm macros and 300mm primes , 2-3 camera bodies , light meters, etc etc laptops and camera bags adds on another 10kg........ for ONE photographer (ha ha ha my friends and me are both stupid and crazy)

We will most likely operate out of a makeshift 'command center' at one of the watch towers with 2-way radio communications .... if you think hiking is slow, photographers move along slower than snails ha ha ha!!! Gubeikou to Jinshanling to Simatai will be at least 3-4 days



I normally carry VERY light equiptment at most other places, but for landscape photography its almost always a backbreaking and crazy early hours thing

[Bryan]

No worries at all and there is nothing stupid about your questions.

[edng]

sunrise has its rewards





my website WALKEAST

[edng]

THIS looks like a 'sweet spot ' .... is it at location A or B or somewhere in between in your map? will research it further

And location K is the hotel (courtyard/quadrangle ) that you wrote about? Any guess or estimate on how long it takes to get from K to B by foot ? Or can a car drive all the way up to B ?

Sorry to be asking these questions....... because there is no distance scale on the Google Earth map ha ha !

Thanks for the tip Bryan ! Your forum has saved me alot of work !!