jinshanling part deux

my love affair with the great wall started before i adopted ruby in 2003. i wanted to see it, but not in the way that most experience the wall.

the tourist spots of the wall are lined with haawkers selling t shirts, overpriced books and postcards, chopsticks and mao pariphanalia. when you visit the wall you do so along with thousands and thousands of others. your vista is of the butt in front of you climbing the stone steps. since the wall is one of the great wonders of the world , it has been restored and "refreshed" in most spots . although it is hundreds of years old, in many places it looks like the men in hard hats just left ( oh i forgot, there are no hard hats in china).

i knew some folks who had hiked what is called "the wild wall" and THAT is the experience i wanted. my day at jinshanling in 2003 is without a doubt one of the best ever. jinshanling is 3 hours from bejing and its another world. when we started planning this trip i knew i needed to go back. most of our kids would not be able to make the 10 miles of crumbling stone steps at jinshanling. but i wanted them to feel what i feel- great awe and a magical connection to this incredible place.

i learned about a company that will take you camping on the wall, and convinced our group that it was worth the time and money to make this part of our trip. so after a morning of touring the forbidden city some other hot and crowded venue the bus picked us up for the long drive to jinshanling. we arrived in late afternoon and immediately headed up to watch the sunset. we had the wall essentially to ourselves and with a bank of clouds in the sky it was a breath taking evening. my mom made it up the steep and crumbling steps thanks to our guide judy. the kids leap like gazelles and the rest of us huffed and puffed along to the tower where we took photos and watched the sky change. there were few other folks there, i only saw a small group of photographers in the distance.

after enjoying the view for a while, and watching the sun dip down behind a distant tower snaking over the hills, we walked back to the village for dinner - prepared by a local family- which was fantastic. accompanied by beer and some kind of chinese firewater that the owner busted out. we ate outside by lamplight. it was rubys birthday so we had cake before heading back up to our tower for the night. after the sleeping gear was doled out the kids found their spots and eventually went to sleep. it was a dark and clear night . the big dipper and milky way looked close enough to touch.

i woke up around 3 am. it seem my thin foam pad was not quite a sealy posturpedic. i considered trying to go back to sleep but the crescent moon hung just above our sleeping tower and dawn was starting to creep over the hills. so i decided to get up. i heard the sound of some photographers walking along below us on the path. it was an amazing morning. almost everyone else was asleep, i could hear the symphony of noises that the kids were making . photos don't do justice to the beauty of our spot.

after breakfast, we hiked again this time to the west towards the hubeku section of the wall. mongolia is on one side of the wall , china the other. a small group of farmers who sell drinks and postcards accompanied us which was nice for me since hazel was tired and wanted to be carried. "my" farmer was a weather beaten man fo an undetermined age who told me he walks the wall three times a day. he did much of the carrying on the downhill which i needed.

some folks hiked further west, some just found a spot to enjoy. what an amazing day.