Hin's 3rd C.O.U.N.T 1,000,000 steps (Sep 19TH – Oct 12th 2011)

7: Nap on golden carpet

Thean Hin Ooi <ooithin@gmail.com>  Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 9:51 PM

Hello from Huai’an in Hebei,

Today we crossed the province of Shanxi and had an easy half day after a very tough tough 700m climb, 23km trek, the day before.

We are expecting an even tougher climb tomorrow, 25km up in the mountains where once up, has to make it to the 2nd upper dam of the Dongyanghe, as there is no exit access along the way - can be dangerous. The good thing is the weather forecast looks good 11-21oC, sunny, slight clouds in the late afternoon.

To date, completed 477.13km (867,509 steps), with a total ascent of 19,955m (> twice the height of Mt. Everest) after 19 days of hiking, and the C.O.U.N.T down begins towards Zhangjiakou.

Sep30. Day11: 07:30-16:45. Xudayaocun -  Zhumakoucun (22.6km) climb of 856m.

Fairly easy lazy day. Sighted a double tracked wall running parallel to the Ming Great Wall. And of course AL went off checking the origin (which he said could either be Bei Wei or Bei Qi - the northern dynasties 1,500 years ago, who made Datong their capital), while I continued on. We then decided to stop at the village of Zhumakoucun and headed to Datong - a much bigger city. The vast plane around Datong is so flat and fertile, and no wonder every dynasty wanted to ensure control over it.

Oct01 - China National Day holiday, and we joined in visiting the touristic places (Wooden Pagoda, Hanging Monastery and Hengshan, deservedly so after 12 hard days of walking.

Oct02. Day12. 07:05-18:36. Zhumakoucun -  Yubaigoucun. Walked 40.5km, ascended 1,079m.

It was a cool sunny and the day-off was most rewarding, as we made the longest trek of 35.58km thus far. It's late autumn, the farmers are briskly harvesting the last of the mustard and digging up the reaming potatoes. In the attempt to halt the advancing dessert they have made tremendous effort to green the area planting fir, birch and poplar trees, giving the mountains, hues of green (fir), red (dwarf birch) and golden yellow (poplar). Away from the nuclear and coal power plants, we found a carpet of dropped golden poplar leaves, where we had lunch of pears and nuts, and took a quick nap.

We continued our hike along the country road beside the wall and were shocked to find tens of wire traps set. AL was upset and took pain to uproot and destroyed all within sight. They were set up to snarl small animals such as rabbits, racoons, pheasants etc. Indeed what a pitiful sight to watch the animal struggled to their death when caught.

Fired up, we "jumped" over a 1.8m rail fence (where now, as a featherweight, presented no challenge at all) and came across another set of unknown great wall towers, whence we followed for the next 5km ending at the village of Yubaigoucun. CH picked us up as the sun set and headed back to Datong for the night.

Early start tomorrow, so for now, all the very best. Good night.

Rgds,
Hin

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