Stepping it up with Beijing hikers (2)

After a two hour bus ride to the north, 12 hikers and three staff stumbled out to blink in the hazy light. Everyone out was disappointed to find that roughly 60 kilometers away from Beijing, the air quality had improved but little. "On a clear day, you can see clear through to the Mutianyu Great Wall!" insisted Millicent Thapa, the self-proclaimed "craziest" guide of Beijing Hikers.

She soon scrambled off, leading the way through Haizi Village toward a humble shrine where she told short and entertaining bits of history. The multilingual American was bizarrely upbeat yet refreshingly sincere and laidback: an ideal guide. As she laid out the flags for the rest of the group to follow, she twittered about the local flora and fauna and the time she had to splint the leg of a woman who had the misfortune to trip and break her leg.

No such misfortune occurred on our trip. The hikes are categorized from 1 to 5, and this one was a 3 -- moderate. The webpage warned that a reason people might not like the trip is that "the hike is mostly flat, except for the last climb up to the top of the mountain behind the pagodas. The climb up is quite a tough way to finish!"

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