Unlike the Great Wall at Badaling and Mutianyu, the wild and steep Great Wall at Huanghua has not been restored since Ming dynasty days.  The opportunity of seeing the wall in its natural state has drawn heartier visitors to this site an hour north of Beijing for years.  However, big changes are coming to Huanghua, and it won’t be long before some of its wildness disappears.  Earlier this year, a government decision was made to make this part of the wall safe for tourists, and that work is now underway.  Stairs are replacing rocky paths on the wall, and merlons - the “teeth” atop the wall - are being reconstructed along the steep battlements, as shown here.

Despite the restoration work, plenty of the wall at Huanghua remains wild.  To reach it from the nearby road, one must first cross a hanging bridge reminiscent of the one in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”  Then it’s up a steep mountainside along a path that becomes impassable if it is too wet with mud or too dry with dust.  Along that path, an ancient lady demands two yuan - a quarter - to walk up her mountain.  To get up onto the wall, one climbs a homemade iron ladder, long rusted, held in place by the villager who made it.  And atop the wall itself, one occasionally walks on nothing but overgrown paths - as shown in the center of this photograph - where a couple of steps to either side will ruin your whole weekend.

Even the newly restored sections of the Great Wall at Huanghua present a challenge; they’re quite steep, though the stairs make them far more manageable.  If you look closely, you can see one person helping another up a ladder alongside the wall.

A view across the valley northeast to a dual continuation of the wall.  Because that section is far from roads and little traveled, I can only assume that the merlons were not recently restored, but simply well constructed long ago.  Legend has it that the Ming dynasty general who oversaw construction on this part of the wall did build it to an exceedingly high level of quality; unfortunately, he took so long to do so that he was beheaded for inefficiency.

The view west from above the fourth watchtower back down to the reservoir where I started this climb.  That reservoir and the road beyond cut the Great Wall in two, in a location where the Japanese blew up the wall here during the Second World War.  The wall continues up the side of the western mountain.  Along the road hidden behind this watchtower is a small hotel, an effort by villagers to start making money before the wall opens officially to tourists.

The Great Wall at Huanghua, like scales on a dragon’s back, continuing eastward.  This section of the wall eventually meets up with the section at Mutianyu, but with all the climbing up and down, it takes some days to walk there.

A final view of the wall after climbing all the way back down to the reservoir at its base.  The section of the wall between these two watchtowers is basically rubble, and it is such a stunning sight that I hope it will be left this way, even after all the restoration in this area is complete.