3AA: Mountain Trails, Watchtowers, and the Lakeside Wall

In just three days, you will get an adventure that is impossible to forget. You will visit some of the most famous areas of the Great Wall, including where the battle took place between Chinese and Japanese soldiers in the 1930s.
 

An overnight stay adds a different dimension to the hike. Watch the evening light, settle into camp, and wake for sunrise over the Great Wall. The itinerary below explains the walking and overnight arrangements.

Breathtaking and challenging

We did the 3 day route 3AA and it exceeded all expectations, resulting in the most amazing views and experience! Albeit slightly more challenging than expected. I'm 32 with a reasonable experience of Scottish mountain hiking and good fitness, but no rock climbing experience, while my girlfriend has a good fitness level but little hiking experience.
 

Our guide Aaron and driver collected us from Beijing in a comfortable Car along with 2 Canadians, which we used throughout the trip. Plenty of water was provided and the food was excellent wherever we stopped. Aaron was the perfect guide, giving us hikes to suit our wants, confidence when required and timely history lessons.
 

In summary; we walked 15 hours over 3 days. Aaron knew the areas of the wall so well, that we passed only 2 other groups in the first 14 of those hours and felt like we had the wall to ourselves! We finished exhausted but excited at our achievement, with great memories and amazing photos!
 

Day 1 Lakeside: we had lunch before beginning the first day hiking. This was a 45 min ascent on unrestored wall, with around 3 hours on unrestored wall with spectacular views without passing a single person. Then 1 hour of restored section where we met a handful of fellow hikers. No difficult climbs but a few scrambles and some big drops off the side of narrow paths. The day was not technically difficult but tiring. The night was spent in a basic but comfortable farmer's b&b.
 

Day 2 Jiankou : after day 1, Aaron gave us the choice to do the easier restored section with the toboggan, or the more spectacular and challenging unrestored section (since he felt we handled day 1 well). We opted for the challenging section and were rewarded with the best views of the trip by far. However, there are numerous narrow ledges with big drops and a few "little adventures" as Aaron described them, which were 3-4 story steep sections to climb up or down. These are closer to rock climbing and a good level of fitness and confidence is required, although we all managed successfully and Aaron's knowledge and confidence of the route made us feel safe.
 

Camping in a guard tower on night 2 could have been an amazing experience, but we were effectively sleeping on a stone floor and no one got more than half an hour sleep. Definitely bring some sort of inflatable mattress to make this an enjoyable experience.
 

Day 3 Gubeikou & Jinshanling: early start at 5:30 with more spectacular views on unrestored wall. Although we also had around 1.5 hours walking around the military zone through fields, but then back onto the wall for the restored section at Jinshanling. These are great for photos, but busier. 2 hours drive back to Beijing for 1 p.m.
 

All in this was one of the greatest experience of our lives and we wouldn't have changed a thing (except bringing an inflatable mattress).

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GillianGeddes, Forth Worth, Texas on TripAdvisor.   

Date of experience: 22 May 2016 

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