Mirko's Great Wall diary

[drevil]

Okay, I have been distracted for awhile but I have been meaning to thank you for your diary of sorts on your hiking the Great Wall.

The photos and stories behind them are wonderful to see and read!

My appreciation of your efforts to share your experiences is opening up my mind and I have learned so much already about this magnificent structure. I can’t think of a better way for anyone to learn more about the Wall.

Many thanks!!!

Thank you dave for your kind words

It is a magnificent structure for sure, but even my pictures only represent a fraction of the whole thing, as i only stick to the beijing parts of the great wall and very close sections in nearby hebei province, so i covered only around a hundred kilometers of a struction that is believed to be more than 20000 kilometers long(all sections combined)

Over the years, as the great wall has become more and more important to me, i wish i could have started earlier to see this also as a kind of documentary.
Wish i had a time machine, tell myself ten years ago, "nevermind the cost, get an IQ180, and the most stable tripod, never work free hand" because each time i go through older images, many are blurred as an exhausted mirko couldnt hold still enough. and as more and more sections have been restaurated the original look of the "wild wall" was lost.

But as long as i am still here, i try to give the best impressions possible

 

[drevil]

Its been a while since the last update, yesterday we did our Xiangshuihu west hike, or so we tried, we met heavy resistance by local guards, who got really aggressive after our second attempt to get around them, who can blame them?

so the plan changed to walk up the path to the great wall, that was suppose to be the way down, which ultimately worked very well, in the shadowy areas there was actually still alot of snow and the weather was great. I only brough my achromatic+ back and my 35mm distagon lens, as i wanted to hike as light as possible.

in the end we didnt do the whole hike, we walked liked half of the way and then returned to the car.

just another great hiking day, shot a lot of IR images

 

[dave.gt]

Its been a while since the last update, yesterday we did our Xiangshuihu west hike, or so we tried, we met heavy resistance by local guards, who got really aggressive after our second attempt to get around them, who can blame them?

so the plan changed to walk up the path to the great wall, that was suppose to be the way down, which ultimately worked very well, in the shadowy areas there was actually still alot of snow and the weather was great. I only brough my achromatic+ back and my 35mm distagon lens, as i wanted to hike as light as possible.

in the end we didnt do the whole hike, we walked liked half of the way and then returned to the car.

just another great hiking day, shot a lot of IR images

Your images and determination are admirable.

Be careful though!
And keep posting when you can, it is very interesting seeing these images that are completely real and different from travel agency photos!

 

[drevil]

Your images and determination are admirable.

Be careful though!
And keep posting when you can, it is very interesting seeing these images that are completely real and different from travel agency photos!

Thx Dave, yes the wild wall is completely different, not restaurated, decaying and eroding due to the seasons. All this has more flair to me than the touristic section by far.
But actually I dont know how much longer I will be able to do this, I am currently in negotiations with a company to move to Switzerland soon, but even if this isnt working out, I might go back to Germany in summer for sure. After 12 years in china its simply time to move on, even though the great wall is the single thing I will miss the most, its just hard to describe what this mega structure means to me.

I am currently working myself through the catalogue to create a selection to make a book about this incredible journey, will update everyone here once this book materializes

 

[dave.gt]

Thx Dave, yes the wild wall is completely different, not restaurated, decaying and eroding due to the seasons. All this has more flair to me than the touristic section by far.
But actually I dont know how much longer I will be able to do this, I am currently in negotiations with a company to move to Switzerland soon, but even if this isnt working out, I might go back to Germany in summer for sure. After 12 years in china its simply time to move on, even though the great wall is the single thing I will miss the most, its just hard to describe what this mega structure means to me.

I am currently working myself through the catalogue to create a selection to make a book about this incredible journey, will update everyone here once this book materializes

This is great news!

 

[drevil]

Here we go again, as i will leave china very soon, i still have to use the time to check some sections i havent dont yet.

this sunday i went to a section that is connecting two sections that i actually know quite well. its connecting our antenna hike(which ends at a high altitude antenna installation) and the section which surrounds the village of chenjiapu. the second half was, as many sections in the past ten years, heavily renovated(disfigured i may say)

the day went pretty smooth, an old lady, guarding the street, lowered the band on our approach without checking us, lucky us.
we then arrived at the antenna and after 2 minutes we reached the great wall.
since this section was new to me, i knew i would focus mainly on taking pictures and my fellow hikers went on without me, we caught up later at lunch.

the hike starts with a long descent into the valley, just before the lowest point one has to leave the wall as the drop to the ground is simply undoable.
then a long ascend starts going even higher than the starting point, and this is where i felt again, i am not in my prime anymore, it was very exhausting but the following lunch break helped alot.
after that the ascends and descends are moderate and i reached the highest tower in the beijing vicinity at 1430m
from here on the rest of the hike would be on the renovated part, largely in the shade, there was still alot of snow and ice, thus we could move down only slowly.

but since the day was passing already i knew i couldnt finish the whole planned route and had to cut it short and look for a path leading back down to the valley, but we couldnt find any for a long time. i was already close to make the decision to go down east but then our driver would have to drive one hour to pick us up, then we did find a path and it lead us down the right valley.

this was another time, i regret deeply not going there more early, to document the wall there before it was disfigured, but as the chinese say "mei ban fa", nothing can be done.

enough talk, enjoy the pictures, i hope i can manage to add them in the right time row.

setup, the usual suspects, C645, 35mm distagon, 120mm planar with p65+ and achromatic+

 

[drevil]

As the end of my china adventure draws closer i wanted to visit the section we call "long hebei hike" once more, which has been for many years my favorite part of them all, unfortunately we ran into some problems (you guessed it). there was a wild fire 1-2 weeks ago, not too far away from this region so people are extremely on the edge.
of course we have different options to get to the wall but i was quite pessimistic that at the other options there would be also other guards, so when we arrived at the next best spot, there they were, but this time we tried to sweet talk to them, explaining to them that none of us is smoking and none of us has a lighter or matches with us. all no good, but my friend told them that i would be leaving china soon and we only want to take pictures, after she offered to leave her ID with the guards they agreed to let us go.

and initially we planned to just do half of the hike then just go back and pick up her ID again but then we decided to do the whole thing(how could we not) and see what happens later when we appear at the village again. luckily the guys were not even unfriendly, considering we came back from the other side than the direction we left to, indicating we did the whole hike after all, but all they cared for was that there was no fire so easy peasy.

only a handful of images today, the air was a bit hazy

on the position of the last image i took a bow, shed a tear and left this section, hopefully not forever

 

[jotloob]

All images are very impressive . Tanks for your efforts you took to show us so many images .

 

[drevil]

All images are very impressive . Tanks for your efforts you took to show us so many images .

thx jürgen, it sure has been a huge effort, especially physically, over the years, but one that i gladly did.
there are millions of other images, but i guess those will be used best for a future photo book

 

[jotloob]

Please inform the forum , when a book comes true . Thank you .

 

[drevil]

just a little silly update, as you may or may not know, i love my contax 645 system.
so much that i just acquired two additional straps in like new condition.
and for fun i put it next to the strap that has accompanied me on countless hikes on the great wall, it served me so well and now its time to leave it into retirement