Gubeikou to Jinshanling Great Wall trekking (2 days)

Itinerary

Day 1: Gubeikou Great Wall Hike to Wild Jinshanling

Stop At: The Great Wall of Gubeikou, Gubeikou Town, Beijing 101508 China
From our meeting point (Lama Temple Subway exit B), our drive will take 2-hour before we reach the border of Beijing and Hubei province. Our first stop is at our farmer friends living next to the Gubeikou Great Wall. They a run a small homestay at the back of a valley surrounded by the Great Wall. With a view of the Crouching Tiger Great Wall, we enjoy a delicious lunch in their backyard. From here our adventure starts.

It takes us only a 15-minute hike up the hill behind the farmhouse before we get our first glimpse of the Gubeikou Great Wall. After a few turns on the little dirt trail, we reach the Great Wall. We hike from tower to tower and take breaks on top of different watchtower. These breaks are a great chance to take some awesome pictures of this 1400 years old section of the Great Wall.

3 hours into the hike we arrive at the highlight of today’s trail, the Gubeikou General Tower. From this tower, you can see the “whole Gubeikou to Jinshanling trek” from the start to the end. On a clear day, we can even see the highest tower at the end section of the Simatai Great Wall.

Here we side track a bit from the Wall to get around the restricted military section of the wild Gubeikou and Jinshanling Great Wall. It’s a really beautiful trail that meanders through farm fields and over the hill ridges next to the Wild Jinshanling Great Wall. Just when you think “we are in the middle of nowhere’ a small farmhouse appears. The farmers have been living there for 3 generations and will prepare us an excellent dinner. They love playing badminton so if you are up for a game with Great Wall as a background, this is your chance.
Duration: 12 hours

Meals included:
• Lunch
• Dinner
No accommodation included on this day.

Day 2: Hike from Wild Jinshanling Great Wall to the restored section of the Jinshanling Great Wall

Stop At: Jinshanling Great Wall, Chengde Shi, Luanping County 068250 China
We get up early in morning for our perfect snapshot of the “Great Wall sunrise” and head down back down to our farmer friends for breakfast. With renewed strength we head straight to the Great Wall again. A small trail will bring us past an excellent view point and in no time we are on the Wild Jinshanling Great Wall.

The 10-km long Jinshanling Great Wall shows us some amazing defensive features like barrier walls, battlement walls, watchtowers, gun emplacements, shooting holes, horse holes, horse blocking walls.

We hike down the crumbled section of the wild Jinshanling for about 30 minutes till we reach at the most famous and best preserved and partly restored section of the Great Wall. Here you can see how the Great Wall of China looked like during the Ming Dynasty.

After a short hike on the restored Jinshanling Great Wall we take a small staircase from one of the battle stations and make our way to the parking lot where our driver will be waiting for us. By 2 p.m., we will be back at our Lama temple meeting point.
Duration: 2 hours

Meals included:
• Breakfast
No accommodation included on this day.