The Great Wall

The Great Wall

You think you know what the Great Wall looks like - - a long wall, built of stone, maybe some parts on a hill, yada, yada, yada.

Nothing can prepare you for the reality.  Those hills?  Mountains.  High mountains.  So high, we had to take a cable car to the top.  And the section of the Wall that we saw (in Mutianyu), the mountain was really steep.  It was hard to imagine the back breaking work it must have taken to get these rocks up the mountain to build the Wall.  

Up, up, up in the cable car!

Once up on the Wall, we hiked along it for a bit.  Every 100 yards or so (the length of a football field), there is a watch tower.  Some are large.  Some are small.  There are plaques on each entrance with the number of the watch tower and, in some cases, the town you were in.  The Wall ran across different areas, so the plaques would distinguish one region from the next.  Kind of like those signs on the highway.

One of the plaques found on the outside of the Watch Tower - tells the number of the Tower and sometimes the name of the region.  One watch tower might have one region on one doorway plaque and another on the other side.

When hiking from one watch tower to another, it isn’t just a pleasant little stroll.  We are in the mountains.  So some stretches were steep and had built in stairs.  Other stretches were flat and a welcomed relief.   

Our driver and translator had never been to the Great Wall - we had fun exploring together!

And when you looked out one of the ‘windows’, you could see the Wall stretch for mile after mile.  Up a mountain and then down to the next.  Then up again, then down.  Did we mention that these are full on mountains?  In a large mountain range?  This isn’t the Hollywood Hills.

The Wall goes on and on and on - - 13,170 miles of it!

And there isn’t just one long continuous Wall.  There are a few Walls, some not connecting at all.  Depending on the geography.  A few years ago, China used satellites to determine the total length of the Wall(s).  Ready for the total?  Around 13,000 miles.  If the Walls were put end to end in one long row, its length would be wider than the United States. MUCH wider.  The United States is about 3,200 miles wide.  The Great Wall is 13,170 miles wide.  It could go back and forth across the US – from California to New York and back to California- and then back and forth again.  Or from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and then back again - TWICE.  That is a long Wall!

Map of the Great Wall (s)

How the Great Wall was constructed - - by Baxter

First they built two big brick walls – they were about 19 feet tall, and about a foot thick.  They were a little less than 15 feet apart.  Then they put rocks and dirt between the two walls, filling up the space.  Then they put lots of stone and gravel in the walls, too.  And that constructed the walkway between the two walls.  And then they found a way to stick it all together and put a floor on top so they could walk and stand on it and shoot arrows at the other army. 

Baxter sitting in one of the 'windows' on the Wall and Steven holding tight so he doesn't fall!

 And then they built the watch towers and made little carvings on the top of the wall so they could shoot arrows and then dodge behind the wall.

Baxter & Deacon at a Watch Tower pointing at a plaque

 I thought it was actually going to be pretty hard to get those heavy stone bricks up the mountain, but they must have had people who were pretty strong.  I think they had animals that helped, like horses, because they didn’t have vehicles back then. 

The wall was built 600 years ago to make sure China wasn’t taken over by another country.  It was Mongolia that was trying to take over China, but now Mongolia is part of China and they get along and they don’t need the wall so people are allowed to go on the wall.  People will be safe now, they didn’t want people on the wall when there was fighting.

(This video is a large file - - we couldn't compress any further, so it may or may not play.)

Measuring the Great Wall - - by Deacon

We took a tape measure to measure the Great Wall.  This is what we found.

A large watch tower measures 34 feet long and 25 feet wide.

The Wall between the watch towers where you walk measures 14 feet across.  

 On the outside, from the ground to the top of the Great Wall, the height measures 19 feet. 

The canons on the Great Wall measure 3 feet long and less than a foot wide.

It was hard to measure because it was so big.  We measured a couple of times and then we added them up.  When we measured the height of the wall, we had to go outside and also inside and hang from the top.  That was fun.

I thought the Wall was bigger, so the measurements surprised me.  19 feet doesn’t feel so tall – I thought it would be like 100 feet tall.

Getting down the Great Wall - - by Baxter & Deacon

We got down the mountain next to the Wall on something like sleds.  There was a track made of metal that looked like a slide at a playground but super, super long.  We had to ride with an adult.  We rode a plastic and metal sled and it had a little stick that made you go forward when you pushed it forward and stop when you pulled it back.

The track from on top of the Wall.

You were not allowed to go really, really fast, even though we wanted to.  There were people ahead of us and we couldn’t get too close.  And there were signs all over saying “Slow Down” and “No Stopping”. It was a very cold day and the wind from the sled made us even colder.  Especially on our faces.  It was fun anyway.

We got up the mountain in a cable car which was like a little tiny room with seats.   

Going up!

It was much more fun coming down on the sleds because we went fast.