Travel: Hike on Eastern Simatai, Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China has many sections located in the mountains north of Beijing.

The most popular sections are the ones at Jongyuquan near Badaling Pass, where most foreign tourists and even local Chinese head to. One can reach this section of the wall by taking the Badaling Express way exactly in the north of Beijing. One can find a huge colourful crowd almost every day in tourist season and the Great Wall is so much renovated here, that you will find feel as it it was built only 10 years back. Badaling Pass was a strategic pass in history because, conquering this mountain pass is a must, if one wishes to capture Beijing while attacking from North.

In April 09, I and my friend Doc headed to Beijing on a tourist trip and we wanted skip Badaling section of Wall initially and were enthusiastic to go to less crowed Jinshanling-Simatai section, located at about 80 miles north east of Beijing towards Changde City. This section of Great Wall is not at all renovated and scenery is much more beautiful than the section at Badaling.

We booked a 280 Yuan tour at a Travel Agency near Qian Men Hutong area. The hike of 11km of Jinshanling section starts at Gubeikou mountain pass proceeding east and ends at Simatai. Gubeikou mountain pass is a strategic pass and many historic wars were fought at this mountain pass. From research in Internet, I could gather information that this 11km trek will take about 4 to 5 hours and one need to carry enough water as there are no places in the middle where you can get any food or water. There are 32 towers en-route and some sections can get steep and dangerous to climb. The tour operator generally drops the hikers at Gubeikou Pass, climbs down, proceeds east and waits for them at Simatai to pick them up after 4 to 5 hours. The Great Wall at Simatai has western and eastern sections separated by a small lake called "Mandarin Duck Lake" in the middle. Another alternative to this 11km hike is, to hike couple of kilometres of steep Great Wall at eastern section of Simatai.

However, next day morning we were disappointed. The girl in the travel agency told us, “no trip today. I am sorry” and returned the money. We headed to a local tourist office and there was not much help there as well. A group of 3 foreign students (two American and one Korean) joined us and they were also looking for a hike on Great Wall. We all decided to drop the plan to hike 11km Jinshanling section and instead decided to just travel to Simatai on our own to hike a couple of kilometers there. We referred maps and found that we have to travel to a small city of Miyun on north eastern side of Beijing. We took Metro (link) to Dongzhimen Bus terminus and took a bus towards Miyun. The buses going towards Chengde city pass through Miyun. The Ticket was 15 yuans. In about an hour’s time, we were at Miyun. Near the Bus stop, the Korean guy, who knew a bit of Chinese negotiated with a Cab driver for a 5 hour trip to Simatai. We got the cab for about 220 yuan for 5 guys and headed to Simatai in the mountains.

It took about an hour to reach to Simatai. The eastern and western section of Simatai mountain is divided by a lake called Mandarin Duck Lake, which gets water from two small rivers.

From the ticket counter, we had to walk about a mile to reach to the entrance of the Great Wall at eastern section. This section of the wall is steepest and the distance between the towers is also shorter (about 250m average) compared to other sections of Great Wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The map of a portion of Great Wall at Simatai. One can take a cable car to directly reach at tower 8 or using cable car one can climb down from tower 8.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slow climb on the hill for about a mile to reach to the entrance in second tower of Great Wall at eastern section of Simatai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First steps after the entrance (at second tower) and you can see the tower 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Section of Simatai leading to Gubeikou pass in Jinshanling. You can see about 13 towers out of 32 towers of that 12km section.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture shows the Simatai west and also the lake in the valley in the middle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture shows second tower in ruins in eastern section of Simatai Great Wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture is taken from 4th tower. The wall to 5th tower is in complete ruins and one has to climb a scary narrow passage of two feet width with a sharp drop in the hill on the right to the chain (not in this picture).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the 5th tower with other towers in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The climb gets steeper. You can see the 6th tower and the 7th tower in the background. We could see couple of children having a lot of fun climbing. You can also see outlines of couple of people standing on 7th tower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see 7th and 8th towers in this pictures. The tourists are standing on 7th tower, the only tower, which one can reach easily though one has to be careful once you are up there. The 8th tower is also known as "White Cloud Tower" and it has a big hole in it, due to Japanese bombing during world war II.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The climb to 9th tower is steep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This place is at location of 13th tower in ruins out of about 17 towers in total in this section. This is the farthest one can go in eastern section of Simatai.The remaining towers are Fairy Tower and Watching Beijing Tower with the steep passages called  Heavenly Ladder and Sky Bridge. These are closed to tourists for safety reasons (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simatai">link</a>.

There is a warning to tourists not to cross a barrier here and two guards make sure that no one ventures beyond this point. Looks like someone translated it directly from Chinese.

“Stop! Dangerous Ahead. Climbing the front Great Wall is Prohibited. Those who violated will be fined 200 Yuan”

This is a recent video of eastern Simatai Great Wall in snow during winter. One can also directly climb up to eighth tower of this section of wall via a cable car.

A better way to explore the great wall at Simatai is to stay couple of days at the youth hostel near the Mandarin Duck lake in the valley. You can also read this blog, if you wish to hike from Gubeikou(Jinshanling) to Simatai. It also contains some very nice pictures. Also, have a look at this blog, which I referred before deciding about this hike.