Great Wall Hike at Jinshanling with Sunset Tour at Gubeikou

 Between 6:30 am and 7:30 am, you will be picked up from your hotel by your English-speaking guide and driver if you are staying in a hotel within the 2nd Ring Road. Otherwise, you will meet us in the Chaoyangmen Subway Station to board the bus for today's tour. From Chaoyangmen, we will make the approximate 2.5 hour drive to the Great Wall at Jinshanling.  

The group will hike for three hours from Jinshanling to West Simatai (also called East Jinshanling). Most of the group will return to Beijing after the hike. Only you from the group will continue to camp today. We will pick you up from the lunch at Jinshanling to transfer you to Gubeikou. You will continue to have a chance to watch the beautiful sunset. 

We'll send you to the bus station. You'll ride 2 hours back to Beijing. 

HIKING AT JINSHANLING

Between 6:20 am and 7:30 am, you will be picked up from your hotel or go to our meeting point at Chaoyangmen Station Entry/Exit A of Subway Line 2 or 6 to meet your guide and bus. Please visit this meeting page for the details. 

From there we will make the approximate 2.5 hour drive to the Great Wall at Jinshanling  A day earlier, you’ll hear from your tour guide about the estimated pickup time from your hotel’s phone or your personal Chinese mobile phone. If you have to skip your breakfast, we have free breads and bottled water for you on board. 

The Great Wall at Jinshanling is one of the best preserved parts of the Great Wall with many original features. It got its name because it was built on the Greater and Lesser Jinshan (Gold Mountain, literally) Ranges. A tablet with the Chinese inscription for Jinshanling Great Wall was set into this section. The Jinshanling Great Wall has not been repaired since 1570. It is a remote and relatively isolated section of the Great Wall. As there are relatively few tourists at Jinshanling Great Wall, it is definitely a good place to explore on foot and see the real Great Wall. 

After about 90 minutes of hiking we will eventually pass over into the West Simtai which is now a part of Jinshanling geographically. The hills in the west are sloping gently, with 20 watchtowers remaining in good shape. The Simatai section of the Great Wall is one of the few sections to retain the original appearance of the Great Wall. Incorporating a variety of characteristics of other sections of the Great Wall, Simatai also displays some unique features of its own. It is often described with the following five words: perilous, dense, diverse, artful, and peculiar.

MEETING THE SUNSET AT GUBEIKOU

Upon reaching the gate of "the Second Valley" (east gate of Jinshanling), you have officially completed today's hiking.  We will treat you a gourmet lunch in a local restaurant. Soon, our local support staff from our Gubeikou Great Wall section will meet you in the restaurant and transfer you to Gubeikou where you will keep on walking to the Wall there and meet the beautiful sunset. After it, you will be transferred to the bus terminal at Gubei Watertown where you will take the express bus to Dongzhimen Bus Terminal of Beijing. Follow the instruction on this page,  you can transfer to Subway Line 2 to go back to your hotel or take Airport Express to catch your flight.   

Extend Your Great Wall Experience with Camping on  the Great Wall Tonight (TOUR CODE 2GC1) 

For an additional CNY699 or USD99,  you will have the chance to sleep on the Great Wall tonight. After you finish your lunch, our local support staff will meet you in the restaurant and transfer you to Gubeikou of the Great Wall where is our camping site.  Gubeikou is a completely unrestored part of the Great Wall, 30 minutes away from  Jinshanling. You will relax and have a chance to watch the beautiful sunset.  Toward evening, we will treat you a country-style dinner in our camping base, a  family-owned hostel. After dinner, our friendly support employee will set the  camp for you to sleep on the Great Wall. The next day morning, our staff will send you to a public bus that takes you to Dongzhimen Subway Station of Beijing where you can conveniently manage your return from there. For more  details of this camping program, please visit the Affordable Group Hiking and Private Camping page.