Taolinkou area

Because of a vacation back in Denmark and a wedding in a few weeks, this post have under way for a long time but here it is.

The Taolinkou area northeast of Tangshan has long been on my list of places to go. Especially because it seems to be possible to hike for a long time in a fairly deserted area, even though the wall is in poor conditions at some places.

In the middle of July I made an attempt to reach a specific part of the Taolinkou Great Wall but was first stopped by a big outdoor market which totally blocked the road and made it impossible to continue. An attempt to find an alternative road to the area also failed because of the quality of the road, which in the mountains suddenly became very bad and the big stones threatened to damage the undercarriage of the car.

Luckily the bad road was located very close to another part of the Great Wall, which is connected to the Taolinkou Great Wall, so even though it was not possible to reach the intended section this day it way still possible to explore some nice Hebei Great Wall.

A closer look in the area reveal that the wall splits in two for a short stretch and then meet again on the next mountain. This might be to strengthen the defensive force of the pass here or maybe it is a result of different ideas in different building periods during the Ming dynasty.

The north part seems older with no visible watchtowers although Google Earth images suggest at least one watchtower, while the southern part of the wall still has intact watchtowers. This might suggest that the northern part was build prior to the southern part but no information regarding this area has been found so far.

The weather is too hot for any whole day trips at the moment (at least in my opinion) so the idea was mainly to go there and get a feeling of the difficulties and challenges in the area to help plan future trips, and this is most likely an area I will return to later.

Entrance price: free

Date of visit: July 12, 2008