Experience in Hebei province and Beijing

Well, we’ve rambled our way across our final jurisdictions, Hebei province and Beijing municipality. These eastern areas we hiked through were different in many ways from the western provinces - more populous, greener, much more mountainous. But the overriding theme of our time in the east was the return of summer.

It’s hard to believe we were camping in snow just over two months ago. By the final two weeks of our trip, the corn had grown high, people were selling vegetables from their courtyard gardens, and the first wheat harvest was already underway.

Summertime is also vacation time, and for once we weren’t the only tourists out on the road. The wall traces a giant semi-circle around most of Beijing’s weekend getaway spots, where we joined thousands of Beijingers taking their holidays. We also had some distinguished holiday guests - Dean and Brenda Fletcher - who traveled from Kansas to spend a week with us!

You can have too much summer, though. In mid-June the weather turned extremely, even dangerously hot. Every day we had temperatures between 35° and 40°, up to 41° on one day. Add in 50-60% humidity, and you have hiking conditions that are always uncomfortable, often punishing, and present a real threat of heat exhaustion.