China Great Wall Simatai

The access to the Great Wall near Simatai is farther away from Beijing and therefore is considered not so overcrowded.

For more images and some info about the location, see these blog posts (in German and English):
https://www.herumkommer.de/zur-grossen-mauer/
https://www.herumkommer.de/grosse-mauer-im-schnee/

We had a guide with a car and a driver. At the Great Wall Simatai Tourist Area there are parkings. You need to buy an entrance ticket. Several hundred meters through the tourist area there is a a ropeway station. I recommend to buy a ticket to take the ropeway / cablecar as the way up to the wall is steep and long. The ropeway ride takes about 20 minutes and gains a few hundred meters of altitude. Meanwhile, the wall is in sight, still far above the ridge of a rugged mountain range. At the end of the cable car you can continue in an open, very steep cogwheel railway, over a distance of about a hundred meters, at another fee. Alternatively you can climb this distance over a steep trail. Finally there are still several hundred meters of serpentines to be walked, some of them steps, until the wall is reached.