4Laffs.com

On the 22^nd of October we went hiking on the Great Wall. Not the refurbished part but the part where it is all crumbly and has huge rocks in the middle. We had to climb over 100 degree inclines. There was one part were you had to go between two rocks and I barely fit so Caleb, Mom, and Dad had to go up and over which they say was “death defying”. When we got back to the hotel, Dad read the hike reviews and all of them said that you should bring ropes and harnesses and have rock climbing experience. But since we did not read the comments beforehand we were just like “we’ll be fine”. We (as in the parents, the kids loved it) were not fine. Mom had a mental meltdown on the side of one of the cliffs. And Dad was like “WE ARE NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!!”. And of course that was when we saw the path that went around the bottom cliff and we were like COME ON!! The trek on the wall was the highlight of China for me. -SLaff

• Editor’s note: After calming down a bit, I would probably soften my position some.  The Jiankou to Mutianyu section was absolutely stunning, and we only saw 3 other tourists in over 4 hours.  The thing is, there really were slopes that (we found out later) were more than 90 degrees, 30-40 feet off the ground.  The kids are somewhere above, Karen is frozen in front of me, and I am hoping that I won’t have to catch anyone on their way down because not even the toe of my size 14’s have anywhere to dig in.  We needed a guide, a map, to be able to read the warning signs and guide markers, some gear, or something.  On second thought, if we had to do it exactly the same way again, I think I would still say NO WAY.  -ALaff