Climbing the Great Wall

Since we have been in China we have seen the mountains that surround Beijing on two occasions - known as "Blue Sky Days" - the day we set out for the Great Wall was not one of those days. It was supposed to be a cool 89 degrees with a 50% chance of rain - so we decided to make our climb.

The air was thick with humidity- as we made the two hours car ride to the Wall. The day started out as any other, walking to catch a bus to McDonald's, then a taxi to where buses departed for the wall - and then into a private taxi car for the two hour ride.

I had a vision of the Wall in my mind, we would climb a few flights of stairs then we would take a leisurely stroll along the wall - what the wall really was did not match my vision at all.

(in this picture, we are at the top all in white, this was the first part of the wall, an easy climb with hand rails)

The Wall was built to keep invaders out - and thus it was rugged. The wall was not a leisurely stroll - it was a climb up a steep mountain. The wall is flat in parts - but mostly comprised of steps up the side of the mountains. The steps meant to slow down invaders were not uniform in size, but varied from 20" to 6" each without hand rails.

The climb up the wall started early in the morning. It was warm, and the clouds hung low on the wall. We breathed in the cloudy mist as we slowly made our ascent. As we climbed higher into the mountains the air became thicker and thicker. It started to sprinkle a few hours into our journey and the steps became very slippery, making are journey slower, at points we climbed on our hands and knees up the wall as not to fall.

What started as a sprinkle, however, soon turned into a torrential down pour, a monsoon rain. The steps soon became a waterfall of water that covered are climbing shoes, however, we could not stop our climb for fear we might be swept away - we had to push upward to a tower higher on the mountain.

It rained sheets down on us as we slowly made our way to a tower at a point on the wall - there we sat for over an hour waiting for the rain to slow enough for us to either climb higher or descend down the wall - we welcomed the wait as we were all exhausted from the climb.

(hiding from the rain)

I had only seen the Great Wall in text books - and today even though the climb was hard and we are all exhausted we have done what few people ever get to do or see -

"We Have Climbed the Great Wall."