Camping at the Great Wall

A few weeks ago we went camping by the Great Wall with a bunch of families from our branch and our neighborhood. You can see part of the wall behind us in the picture. Here's what Mike had to say: "We drove about one and a half hours up to a part of the Great Wall called Huang Hua Cheng. It is pretty out of the way and is a very "natural" section of the wall, overgrown with trees and plants in many places. We squeezed through the alley way of a main road through the town below the lake. Then we loaded up all the gear onto a ferry which drove us over to the camp site, which we had all to ourselves. The view from the campsite was unbelievable, with three different sections of the wall visible. We had fun with every one until it was time for bed. Then it was so hot that we had to leave the tent open for a bit of air. We still didn't sleep, with the boys tossing and turning, I started on the left side, then moved to the foot of the tent where it was a bit cooler, then I soaked my t shirt in the ice water from the cooler and used that to cool myself off, then I moved to the right side when Garret decided he wanted the foot of the tent. I finally fell asleep at about 2:00. I woke up at 5:00 and it was still so hot I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep so I took a hike up to a section of the Wall which was crumbling. The watchtowers were still mostly intact but were covered with trees and took a bit of technical climbing to get on top of. The view from the second watchtower was amazing, looking at the Wall descend into the lake below, rise 150 feet out of the water to another watchtower, then jog left back down into the water and up to another peak. Looking in another direction you could see one long section snaking up a mountain spine to a watchtower which was about 600 feet high. I wanted to keep going up but I knew the kids wouldn't sleep too much longer- With the one time zone it gets light very early in eastern China so it isn't exagerating to say it is getting light at 4:00 A.M. So I headed down and was back in camp at 6:30. Of course everyone was up, so we heated up our sausage egg and potato on the fire and ate breakfast. The kids had a blast and even though it was a ton of work we had a great time and will never forget it. "