Mutianyu

We went to the Great Wall on Saturday with Barney, one of the guys on Mikes team that was here working, from South Carolina.  It is hard to believe these mountains are just over an hour from a city of 20 million people. On the way up, as you come into the country, there are apple and peach orchards and huge garden fields.  Along the road there are veggie and fruit stands and they all have mounds of walnuts and chestnuts for sale too.  It is walnut and chestnut season now.
We rode up to the wall in a gondola.  If we had had to walk I am not sure I would have made it to do any walking on the wall itself.

Some shots of the wall as we were riding up.  Mike and Barney went all the way up past the horizontal part. Olivia and I couldn't quite get that far.  The stairs are steep and irregular, some about three inches high some more than a foot with very shallow treads on the taller steps....closer to climbing a ladder!

 

 The stairs up into the towers are very narrow and steep and uneven and half broken.......This was the first set we tried, notice to the left of Olivia, that 'step' is at her waist!

 If you look closely you can make out the first step on this picture.  It is just below the bottom of the binoculars, you have to hoist yourself up to go into this tower. The treads are about 4 inches, not the easiest stairs to climb but I did it!!

 Here we are with Barney in one of the towers.

Inside they are very solidly built.  Also many of the stairs are blocked off to prevent you from going into the top of the towers.  They are very much in need of repair.

Mike looking a bit sweaty after he came back down from the top.

Enough for this post.

Love, fondly, sincerely,

zaijian,

Ramona