Hiking in Beijing

The smell of coffee and sun cream are what this writer has come to associate with summer Sunday mornings. At 8 a.m. Beijing's hikers gather outside the Lido Centre Starbucks on the city's northeastern side. In wintertime we spot new recruits by the latest editions of international outdoor wear brands picked up at shopping centres across the city. The windbreakers, hiking trousers and tough rubber boots have become a staple of Beijing market stalls and make a cold morning on a mountain a lot more bearable. Hiking boots are still essential on summer days, but the double-layered coats and thermo-insulated gloves can be left at home.

Beijing has a wealth of hiking spots on its outer reaches. Once aboard the club bus, the drive to the morning's hiking trail - researched and mapped during the week by group leader Sun Huijie - offers the reluctant a chance to catch up on sleep lost to Saturday night dining and drinking. Friends and colleagues regard Sunday morning hikers as crazy, but several have been convinced to join the pack and those who did have remained loyal Beijing Hikers.

One of our recent hikes was in Mentougou District, about 50 kilometres west of Beijing. It's one of the few hikes that Beijing Hikers take in the hills west of the city. The best routes are found north of the city, in Miyun County. Mentougou District lies north of the Miaofeng Mountain range. Miaofeng Mountain, rising majestically to more than 1,300 metres, is the tallest peak in the northern range of Beijing's Western Hills. Miaofeng is known for its sheer cliffs, jutting crags and tortuous mountain paths. I've done it on a mountain bike, but at Mentougou the range tapers off slightly and offers a bracing hike. The highest point of the route was the pass, which made for a perfect lunch spot. At that point we were more than 800 metres above sea level.

Just north of Qiyuancun village, where we stocked up on water, the hike started between a temple and a motor race. A touring car race complicated matters and forced a change in the drop-off point, but it was a boon to be able to see a rally-driving circuit, carved by the racers from sandstone hills and dropping onto a plateau. Locals had joined police as stewards for what looked like highly organized, big-value stuff. We climbed upwards to avoid the speed-chasers, first on a paved lane. From there the hiking trail was clear and well maintained by local municipal workers. We passed woods, country chalets and, bizarrely, fake Mongolian yurts before getting deep into the hills.

Fifty minutes into the hike we came to a large rock with a miniature pagoda sitting on top. Nearby caverns, carved into the mountain rock, some of them housing grottoes placed by local worshippers suggest that this place holds no small significance for local Buddhists. More than an hour later, over stony tracks twisting through trees and bushes, we had lunch atop the mountain pass. Sitting beneath a hulking electricity pylon, our view was magnificent. Various shades of green were darkened and lightened by passing clouds. It had taken about two hours to reach the pass and it would take us two more to descend on the other side.

Keener hikers walked along the ridge before going down. The valley was wide and open, cut by a drying stream and dotted with the ruins of farmhouses and a few pig sheds. Huijie had flagged the four-hour hike on our maps as the woodpecker trail, and yes, there were birds singing in the trees, but this writer couldn't pick out a woodpecker. Others did.

Just outside of Cheerying village, where we were picked up, two couples herded goats. The herders and their animals were resting under the shade of a few large trees and giggled when some of us asked to take some photos of the scene. It was a slice of rural idyll not unlike something John Constable might have painted 200 years ago in agrarian England.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. Locals sat around a large tree in the village square, chatting, snoozing and playing chess. Bottles of Yanjing beer cost a for-nothing 1.5 yuan. It was a neat hamlet of sandstone houses and red doors. Cheerying is a proud place too. Fresh concrete was drying in the sun: villagers had been laying new lanes through the village. The local Guan Di Miao temple draws some visitors, but there weren't many strangers about the day we walked through.

As always, beer was served alongside coffee, soft drinks and biscuits when we reached the bus. A couple of dozen foreigners in hiking boots and bright colours standing by a blue and white bus has become a regular sight on Sunday afternoons in the outskirts of Beijing. Curious villagers look on; some accept the offers to join us for a drink. Some hikers stretch before getting back on the bus. Everyone at that stage is weary-limbed and chatty, and after an hour, silence usually descends on the bus as heads drop for a snooze. The following Sunday morning we'll rise too early again and repeat the exercise.

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Beijing Hikers depart from Starbucks at the Holiday Inn Lido every Sunday morning at 8 a.m. For more details, see: http://www.bjhikers.com.

Bus stations servicing Miaofeng Mountain are usually located at Pingguoyuan, at the western end of the No. 1 subway line. Buses 336 and 326 run to Hetan from here, taking you right into the mountains.