Beijing Part 2 "The Wall"

Our second day in Beijing we visited the Great Wall.  The area of the wall we visited was about an hour north of Beijing.  We were quite happy with our experience.  Travelers can get very different experiences visiting the Great Wall.  It depends on which section you visit or whether you go trekking along it somewhere off the beaten path.  At times, like most tourist destinations in China, the sheer amount of people can spoil the experience.   Much of the wall that is accessible to tourism has been rebuilt in the last 30-60 years and is under constant repair in those rebuilt sections in order to keep people safe when walking on it.  They say that the repairs last a fraction of the time that the original wall did.

Where we visited, the rebuilt section was about two miles long.  We were able to walk along the wall to the edge of the rebuilt section and then continue along to a tower that has crumbled.   It was nice to see both aspects.  Here were some of my observations:

- The wall was taller than I thought.

- Built initially to prevent attacks from the Mongolians the wall was most valuable as a means of transportation and communication.  It acted like an early highway for transport.  The watch towers would use smoke and fire signals to pass messages regarding any movement by the enemy.

-The wall is far from a single long wall.  There were a lot more branches than I realized.  In the section we visited the wall would branch off along jointed ridges and run for a mile before ending.  This may have been to improve the line of sight but I'm not sure.

-The wall was really steep in sections.  I really pity any creature that had to be the workforce for that highway transport system that I mentioned earlier.

We were lucky to have sunny skies despite the blistering cold.

Bri's watching her step on fallen watch tower rubble.

Brooke and Bri took pictures of each other while taking a break to catch our breath before climbing a steep section.