notes and images
^ With Ben (left) on top of the cliff at Huangyukou
Most navigation arguments have little real consequence. “You missed the exit!” “That was the exit?” “I told you to get in the right lane!” You might be late, but you won’t have to sleep outside in the cold.
But on the side of a cliff in failing light, they take on a different complexion.
November, 2016. Sunrise above Shuitoucun. Set off at three in the morning, a cold November Sunday, hike four kilometers through fog and forest to the pass, down to the Watergate and then up the long line of Great Wall. The first light rises as you breach the cloudbase, and then, southeast, to your left, the huge yellow sun bursts into the world from beyond the range.
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I’m a mountain guy, I decided, after just a few hours in the outskirts of the Gobi desert. It was hot, and blowy, the Great Wall we were following was practically impossible to see, and the ground beneath us was parched and covered in huge salt pans. Give me a goat track, I thought. A ridge ripped by a cold wind from Siberia, and a Ming wall I can actually see. But my friend Chinoook is made of sterner stuff (though I give him a run for his money on my home turf). Out ahead, he led the way through the salt pans towards a brown smudge on the horizon. “There’s the wall”, he promised. I squinted. “Sure it is”, I thought skeptically. But he was right. Just meters off a salt pan they could have used as a set for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings, stood an enormous, multi-tiered wall – a giant layer cake two thousand years old.
This is a story about the Great Wall, but even more than that it’s a story about a guy I know who’s really, really into the Great Wall. Yes, I know I’m into the Wall; but I am nothing more than a young, naive Luke Skywalker to this guy’s Yoda. In May 2013 I joined him on an expedition to explore obscure, remote parts of the wall out in Gansu Province, as far west as historical China extended during the Han and Ming dynasties. In a week with Yoda, I would climb a rockface, navigate by night, gather Han potsherds, thumb rides by the side of the freeway, and eat stir fried gizzards. I also learned a lot about the Great Wall, and made a good friend.
If you like hiking and you have a child, well, the good news is you can keep hiking. I did a lot of research online before our kid arrived about the best heavy duty child carrier. I wanted something that could conceivably support an overnight camping hike. The Osprey Poco gets a lot of love online, and deservedly so.
This thing transformed my life, because it showed me you can take your kid anywhere.
The first time I took my daughter hiking without her mother, she was just learning to walk (the kid, I mean!). Because this was a test run, I brought my sister along (now a new mum herself). But the challenge arose from the fact little W was still breast-feeding. My sister’s great, but (back then) she couldn’t help with that. Instead, I had a bottle of frozen milk and my PocketRocket…
“My car (che) is in Zhangzuo Village, how do I get there?” “Oh you want to eat (chi) in Zhangzuo?” “Okay, uh, (to other lady) is there a bus to Zhangzuo?” “Sorry, I’m deaf!”. Oh. “What did he say? I can’t hear!” Between my rusty Chinese, the old ladies’ rusty Chinese, and a few hearing problems, our hike to the General’s Pass ended in a bit of a comedy of errors. It had been a long day, a sudden heat snap in Beijing’s usually mild spring hitting us during the rugged ten kilometers of rocky, early Ming wall. Negotiating nearly a kilometer of vertical gain with a new puppy who needed carrying most of the way, topped off a pretty tough day. But as always on the Great Wall, there were wonderful views, interesting features, and friendly villagers. As I’ve said before, if you’re tired of the Wall, you’re tired of life.
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