Yunmengshan Great Wall in Beijing

Plan your Great Wall tour? The Great Wall of China is not a continuous wall. The wall exists in bits. These bits don’t form a continuous line. Most of the bits of the remaining Wall have their own names. Usually their names are given with regard to their geographic location, historical factors or the necessity of the local tourism promotion.

Yunmengshan Great Wall is such named because it is located to the east of Mt. Yunmeng ( Yunmengshan Mountain ). Yunmengshan literally means “a mountain always covered by mist”. Yunmengshan is locally referred as “Huangshan of North China” due to its stunning view.

Yunmengshan Great Wall is a small bit of the Wall around Beijing. It was built under the General Qi Jiguang during the Ming Dynaty (1368 -1644). To its west, is located Mutianyu Great Wall, to its east Gubeikou Great Wall  and Jinshanling Great Wall.

It takes you 1 and half hours by car from your downtown hotel in Beijing to the Yunmengshan Great Wall Relic Park, which lies about 90km northeast of Beijing.

There still exists 3 forts (watch towers) and one beacon tower on the Yunmengshan Great Wall with the beacon tower on the top of the mountain, the final destination of the hiking trip.

To reach the beacon tower on the top, we have to clamber up, passing the 3 forts all the way. The first tower is called “Three Side Building” (altitude: 334m); the second tower “the General”s Tower” (altitude: 402.4m); third tower “Square Building”(altitude:504m) and the final beacon tower has the sea-level of 679.3 meters.

Normally it takes approx. 2 and half hours hiking to the top beacon tower. For most of the time we have to walk along the paved stone step path or a well-trodden walking path paralleling the Wall because Yunmengshan Great Wall is too wild, original and treacherous for you to walk.

In addition, most part of the Wall were built on the steep cliff. The most important is all the wild sections of the Wall around Beijing are protected and forbidden for hiking.

One big difference between Yunmenshan Great Wall and other formal and standard bits of the Wall like Badaling Great Wall and Mutianyu Great Wall is the making of the Wall itself.

Yunmengshan Great Wall is made of rocks and stones used from the local mountains while Badaling Great Wall and Mutianyu Great Wall are made of the bricks used from the official kilns.

If you are not used to hiking, you can walk to the second tower ( The General’s Tower ), then turn back. If you are physically fit for the whole trip hiking up to the beacon tower on the top,  you are encouraged to trudge up to the round beacon tower since the view west of the signal tower is stunning – the steep Yunmengshan Ravine behind it!

Well, now follow us clambering up. There are three paths leading from the entrance to the Great Wall – left, middle and right. The right path leads to the first tower; the left path leads to the second tower and the middle path leads to the trail between the first tower and second tower.

We plan to walk along the right path going to the first tower and return along the left path which forks at the second tower to skip over the second and first tower.

We are approaching the beacon tower.

Its stunning view reminds me of my trip to Huangshaun.

Behind the beacon tower is the Yunmengshan Canyon

 

Tip: Hassle-free Great Wall Guided Tours
Don’t want to go the do-it-yourself route? No worries, We at Tour Beijing have some options for guided tours to Great wall Tours:

Mutianyu Great Wall Group Day Tour
Mutianyu Great Wall Half  Day Private Tour
Hike from Jiankou to Mutianyu Great Wall Tour
Hike from Gubeikou to Jinshanling Great Wall Tour
Hike from Jinshanling to Simatai Great Wall West Tour
Badaling Great Wall + Mutianyu Great Wall Day Tour
Badaling Great Wall and Underground Palace Day Tour
Badaling Great Wall + Forbidden City + Tiananmen Square Day Tour

Add on
Yanhecheng Village
Shuangshitou Village
Cuandixia Village
Mentougou Vernacular Dwellings Day Trip

Further Readings