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I was able to escape Beijing for a couple days to go camping in the mountains with some friends. We had the most gorgeous weather; sometimes the government’s experiments with the weather do work out, but only sometimes. The two perfect weekend days came after a week of haze, humidity, and constipated rain (rain that misted the air, but wouldn’t quite fall, and created an aggravating situation in which there wasn’t enough precipitation to merit carrying an umbrella, but enough to get you wet and make your hair frizzy and uncontrollable).

We rented a car that drove us two hours outside of Beijing, to a place called Haizikou. You can see for yourself how lush the mountains were, and how blue the sky was! From there, we hiked for about two hours down into the valley.

After two hours, we found a terraced patch of land and an abandoned grain mill hewed out of stone (See middle picture). The grain mill made a perfect table for our copious amounts of food (pastas, snacks, sausages, bagels, cheeses, wines, and of course, s’mores!). We dined well. No instant noodles for this group. One guy in the group even brought fresh basil to make his own pasta sauce! (See me gazing at the table of food trying to decide what to eat!)

Our tents were right above the stone mill, on a terraced patch of land, just big enough for our 6 tents. We had to climb up a wall to get to our tents, which was easier than it looked given all the footholds. The two dogs on the trip had trouble though, and had to be lifted up and down. We then spent the rest our our daylight hours collecting firewood (My friend below finds a creative way to break dead branches) and playing baseball with small stones and the walnuts from the walnut trees that surrounded the place.

Last but not least, as we were hiking the next day, we came across a reservoir. It was the first body of water in China that I did not think twice about jumping in and swimming! The water was clean, clear, and cold! It was definitely refreshing.

For National Holiday, October 2007, I went on a two-day camping adventure on the Great Wall.

Pre-Expedition

There were five of us all together, and it took about half a day before-hand to prepare: I had brought a sleeping bag, but we also needed mats (we weren’t sure if we would be sleeping in a guard tower, or if we would try to get off the wall and try to find a relatively flat clearing on the mountain side, but either way, mats were essential. We also bought a cooking stove, and a ton of not- good-for-you snacks filled with carbs and calories for energy, and some good snacks, like banana chips and peanuts. We also da baoed (boxed) some relatively unspoilable Chinese food, like noodles, froze them, and carried them with us. Unfortunately one of the dishes we got had meat in it, which we forgot about, and had to throw away (because no one wanted to get sick off of spoiled meat in the middle of nowhere). Our biggest concern was bringing enough water, and being able to carry it (carrying water on your back can get pretty heavy, and climbing the great wall is already difficult and treacherous without 60 pounds on your back). So we decided on ten bottles each, with the hope of not getting lost and dying of thirst, or falling off a cliff because our bag slipped). Andy was very concerned about the water situation, by the way.

The Plan

You may be wondering how we possibly could get lost if we were simply walking on the Great Wall. Doesn’t the wall go in one direction (or two, depending on if you are going East to West or West to East)? The answer is no, the Wall has areas where it forks in different directions. Also, most of the wall is broken, resulting in a lot of the Wall being nothing but ruins, covered in brush and overgrowth, so much that you can lose the wall completely (which is what happened to us).

The decision makers (Andy and Pete) decided to start from a non-touristy wall entrance, huanghua cheng, and then hike thirty kilometers to Mutianyu, a more touristy section of the Wall. We got contradictory statements whether it was actually possible to hike from one part to the other, some said you could, some said it was impossible. We decided to take the chance and go for it. All that we were told by the people who said it was possible was that if we come to a fork in the wall, stay right. Otherwise, we would be in the middle of nowhere, which would be a very bad thing if we ran out of water. So, we hired a mianbao che (a little minibus) to take the five of us to the wall. It took 2.5 hours to arrive.

The Explorers set out

We arrive, and the first thing we decide to do was stock-pile on some energy, a.k.a eat lunch. Normally I do not eat rice with meals (useless starchy carbs with nearly no nutritional value in the long run) but we all ate a bowl of rice, and some vegetables and meat of course. While we were there, we met some Canadians who were eating lunch at the next table. One had been living here for 9 and a half years (and forty pounds, his words, not mine). He saw our huge backpacks (I did not have a camping backpack, so poor Andy had to carry both his and my sleeping bags and mats, resulting in him having the biggest and heaviest bag). And we told him our plan. He of course thought it was ludicrous (himself being extremely unfit) and said that we would only be able to make it to the fourth guard tower! However, he gave us the card of the owner of the restaurant, in case we got in trouble or needed some friendly guanxi for whatever reason. After lunch we  set out for the actual wall. Being an unrenovated section, we actually had to use a ladder to get onto the wall (normally there are steps). It was a rickety wooden ladder, and extremely difficult to climb, more so with heavy sacks on our backs. So that was the first obstacle. After that, the entire Wall was ours, and with the one exception of spotting some foreigners briefly at one section of the wall that was close to a village (which was a godsend on the way back, since we didn’t know it was “near” civilization until then), we didn’t see another soul.

Sometimes you get the Wall, sometimes the Wall gets you

We set off on the Wall at about noonish, which meant we had roughly 7 hours of hiking time before it would get dark and we would be forced to stop. Climbing is hard. The Wall has very steep inclines and descents, and as we were on an especially perilous section, entire chunks of the wall would be missing or nothing but a heap of rubble. We got pretty lucky with alternative path finding. We were able to bypass a whole mountain peak by finding a path that curved downwards across the mountain side to another part of the wall.

One time we didn’t get so lucky. On a particularly tricky climb over rocks and through brush, our group decided to split up. Andy and Pete wanted to attempt to rock climb, while Ally and I (and Jon, since the boys oh so chivalrously decided that one boy needed to stay with the women (right)) decided to follow a path that we thought would lead us up the mountain and back on the wall. We had a beautiful hike through wilderness, (not entirely wilderness, because there were small terraced plots of corn and squash, but still no soul to be seen), However, there was no way to get back on the wall! We soon discovered that we were on the Mongol side of the wall, and experienced first hand why the Wall was built, to keep the Mongols out. Being the Mongols kind of sucked, because it meant the three of us had to backtrack back to the point where we first split up and climb up the way Andy and Pete did.

The Climb of Terror

During the course of the hike there was a lot of tiptoeing past perilous drops where the Wall’s walls were non-existent, and there was a significant amount of rock climbing, but nothing compared to one section of the wall that we had to get past (twice as it will turn out) which I shall refer to as the Climb of Terror. Okay, so maybe the others might refer to is as the Climb of Relative Scariness, but as I am scared of heights, I was pretty afraid. I’m not exactly sure how far the drop was, but if you fell, the least that would happen would be broken limbs and internal bleeding, and the worst, well thank God the worst did not happen.

What made it particularly scary in the psychological sense was that if one of us had fallen, we were absolutely in the middle of nowhere, with no one around. It was hard enough to carry our own bodies this far, and would have been close to impossible to carry someone back had it been necessary. I should say here and now (especially if Grandma reads this) that we are all fine, and the only injuries I have are incredibly sore muscles and lots of tiny lacerations on my arms and legs from hiking through brush. Ally had the worst injuries, which were still nothing but cuts and bruises after she fell and rolled down a particularly steep section of the wall as we were descending. Luckily she had her pack on, which protected her back and kept her from rolling further.

Anyway, back to the climb of terror, think of going mountain climbing up a nearly vertical precipice. Then think of trying to scramble onto a crumbling wall with scary drops on either side, and being well aware that the wall could crumble beneath you at any time. Then think of trying to get incredibly heavy bags up with you at the same time. And then think of the girl who’s scared of heights trying not to hyperventilate while holding on for dear life while others have to hoist bags up the cliff while she’s uselessly clinging to a rock face. I don’t remember much of the ascent besides being scared, but I think people pulled and shoved me to get me up there. Anyway, at least I made it .

The Campsite

After that adventure, dusk was quickly settling in, which meant that we had to hurry up and find a campsite before it got too dark to see. We walked for about another 15 minutes with absolutely nothing suitable in sight, no guard tower, no flat part of the wall, nothing. I think at one point Ally randomly looked over the wall, and lucky she did, because she found the only relatively cleared, flat piece of space available probably within a huge distance. The area was very small, maybe 12 square feet, but it was enough space for us to lay out sleeping bags and have a small fire against the bricks of the wall.

We made our own firepit using rocks, and there was plenty of dry firewood, and about 10 feet of brush between our camping space and a mountain cliff drop (at night, we all thought that the huge space of fog and mist looked like a lake, but no, it was simply a lot of sky in between the mountains ) We cooked our food using the stove we bought, and roasted my stolen corn in the fire. All in all, it was a pretty cozy campsite, the weather was perfect, the ground was dry, but lumpy. We heard animal noises that sounded like a cat, and we tried to remember if there were bobcats in the Chinese mountains. Our cell phones still worked (gotta love China on that one) so we texted friends, but got two contradictory reports. However, no bobcats were sighted that night.

Lost

We woke up in the morning around 7 o’clock. We originally planned to wake up at five (which is not so early since we went to bed at 8), but that didn’t happen. We packed up our things and started out close to 8. After a while we got to an almost fork in the road, or should I say, fork in the woods, for at that point we were walking on soil with trees everywhere with a few stones here and there to remind us that we were maybe on a Wall. Having been told to stay right, we go right. However, after walking for a while, the path just stops. There was no where else to go, and no wall to be seen. Befuddled, we back tracked, and this time decided to go left at the fork. After walking down that way for quite some time, the path also stopped. We were lost.

Turn Around

At this point, we had to start making decisions. We were low on water, had no idea how far we had walked, nor how far we had left until Mutianyu. So, even though we said that there was no turning back, nor did we want to endure the Climb of Terror (CoT) again, it was clear that turning back was our only choice. Going down the CoT turned out to be easier than going up. Pete had brought a rope, so we decided to lower our bags first by rope. Andy climbed down first, than Jon went down to the midpoint, I went down and found a safe spot somewhere in the middle, and Pete and Ally both staggered themselves at the top, and thus we began the process of lowering bags. It was quite efficient actually, and we all made it safely.

We kept on hiking, and out of luck encountered a German couple on the wall. They had on sandals, so we asked how they had got here (they couldn’t have hiked all the way in sandals) and they said they had followed a path that was about thirty minutes from a main road and restaurants. I was so happy! Only thirty minutes to civilization? If we hadn’t met them, we would have walked another 1-2 hours back to where we started from. This was much easier. When our bedraggled group finally made it to the restaurant, it was so nice just to wash our hands and get the dirt out from under our fingernails. For some odd reason I had dirt smeared across my face which the whole group neglected to tell me about until after we had finished lunch. Thanks guys.

The Aftermath

As I said, we all survived with barest of injuries. However, it was so hard to walk afterward; my muscles hadn’t been worked like that in a long time and were really sore for days (they still kind of hurt a bit). Anyway, the whole trip was such an adventure, and ranks up there as one of my coolest life experiences. Pete video recorded it; I will have to get a copy to show you guys sometime.

I had a wonderful experience flying with Tim Krout on a beautiful Saturday, October 14, 2006. Tim has had a pilot’s license for a year or so, and earned his instrument rating this spring, which means he can fly when visibility is poor. We talked about going up for several months and finally made it happen.

Pre-Flight

Tim keeps his plane at Hayes Field near Clarksville, one of the only airports with a grassy runway in Maryland.

The plane, a Cessna Skyhawk 172, technically is a four-seater, but in reality has the same amount of cabin space as Mom’s Audi TT, with a little more headroom.

We rendezvoused at the field at 8:30 a.m., but waited about an hour while the sun thawed a thick layer of frost from the wings. Also at the field was a group of guys just about to break the world’s record for continuous flight of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The record was 40-some hours, and they were shooting for 50. They were gone when we returned, so we don’t know for sure if they succeeded.

High Flying Antics

The take-off and flight toward the Chesapeake Bay were very smooth. The trickiest past is maneuvering between all the restricted flight zones. Tim certainly knows the lingo as he speaks to air controllers; almost like speaking a foreign language.

The Chesapeake Bay is beautiful at ground level, but it is absolutely stunning from the air. Glistening blue water framed by lush carpets of trees. The tributaries look like a piece of modern art.

Airport Poker

The occasion for the flight was a game of “airport poker” arranged by an informal group of pilots. The idea is to fly to a couple of airports, pick up a card, then meet at a final airport to play out the hand and have lunch together. The group does this periodically and this would have been Tim’s first time. But this was a rescheduling of a bad-weather day the week before, so it wasn’t clear how many pilots would participate. We got a late start due to the frost, so we just flew straight to the final airport. No one else was there; we were the only plane on the tarmac. So we went ahead to the restaurant on our own. A few other pilots did show up about an hour later. We stayed and talked, but never got around to playing poker.

The final airport was on Tangier Island, just south of the Maryland line in Virginia, a tiny bump of land less than a half-mile across. Population: 600. As we approached, Tim asked if I could see the runway. My response: “Heck, I can’t even see the island”.

Directly overhead, we saw there indeed was a runway, which appeared to be the most solid part of an island that was mostly marshland.

Tangier Island

When we landed, two guys in a gold cart scurried over to the plane to collect a sort of airport parking fee – a whole $5. Parking a car in Inner Harbor costs twice that!

When the golf cart guys drove away, Tim looked at me and asked, “What language were they speaking?” I, too, had noticed their very strong dialect that was a little hard to understand. At the restaurant, the server was easier to understand, but still had an intriguing accent. For example, she said “Hees ya pancake” as she served dessert. I was engrossed in conversation and did not pay full attention, but part of my brain thought, “Hmm, pancakes for dessert – interesting.” Turned out to be “pound” cake. I was curious enough to do some research when I got home and found this: “The tiny island community has attracted the attention of linguists because its people speak a totally unique dialect of American English, hypothesized to be nearly unchanged since the days of its first occupation by English colonists.”

The restaurant, Hilda Crockett’s Chesapeake House, was a treat. Very simple, with six large tables nestled together, each seating 12. Tim and I were the only guests at first. They just sat us down at one of the tables and started bringing out food. No menus here; you just eat what they are serving that day. And it’s all family style. So here’s Tim and I, sitting at a humongous table, with huge platters of ham, cole slaw, potato salad, beets, corn pudding, apple sauce, green beans, bread, fried crab fritters and an endless supply of big, meaty crab cakes. After a half hour, another couple came in, was seated right next to us and ate from our same platters. Half-hour after that, three more fliers joined us. Around 2 p.m., we headed out, stopping for a group photo.

How often does that happen at a typical restaurant? To that point, we still were the only luncheon guests. But as we left, the server was stocking several tables with a fresh supply of platters and bowls; they must have been expecting a mid-afternoon rush.

Homeward Bound

As we winged our way homeward, Tim let me take the controls so he could do some sightseeing. The flight had been very smooth all day, and my flying started out fine. But after about 5 minutes, the plane started pitching and yawing, and I struggled to keep a level horizon. I asked Tim if my piloting was that bad, but he assured me that we had entered some atmospheric turbulence. I hung in there for another 15 minutes, then Tim took back the controls so we could land for fuel. Tim made flying look easy, but my short session showed just how physically taxing it is.

The turbulence persisted the rest of the way home. Nothing severe, like head-hitting-the-roof type turbulence. But just enough that I started feeling a little queasy by the time we landed back at Hayes Field. Another 30 minutes, and I probably would have been tossing my crab cakes.