Leading down to the valley floor ---  Hiking down was much harder on the knees than hiking up.  Always present was the potential of injury due to carelessness However, in the restored sections there were no loose rocks, bricks, or scrubby bushes to trip on, just plenty of brick steps to maneuver. The variation in height forced me to keep an eye on the next couple of steps so not to over-extend a knee or stumble on a steep step.

The Great Wall is changing all the time . . .

To be more  specific - China's Great Wall is disappearing century by century, and year by year. Well-maintained sections like Badaling are just a few rare exceptions. The fact is that many wall sites have fallen into disrepair and are in danger of being lost forever due to physical weathering and human activities. Local vandalism is a major threat. According to statistics from UNESCO, nearly one third of the Great Wall has already disappeared.  What survives today are mainly the stone and brick constructions from the Ming Dynasty. The earlier  walls made of rammed earth, particularly those in Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Ningxia in northwest China, are deteriorating quickly, either cracking, leaning, or collapsing. It is estimated that without effective conservation, these sections the Wall will disappear altogether within 30 years.

Photographed in 1986.