Lightning--or rather hail--strikes twice
After our Thursday hike was interrupted by a hailstorm, we were sure that Friday would be a much better day. The weather app on my phone indicated that we would have some wind but partly cloudy skies. Our drive from Changping back up to Moshikou area was gorgeous. On our way past this part of the Great Wall, I snapped this out the open car window. The day looked promising.
Shortly after I took that picture, we were under light grey cloud cover. We tentatively got out of the car to head up a different trail than the day before, worried that it could rain again. But the clouds soon gave way, yielding to blue skies again.
At one point we stopped to rest in a shady spot next to this giant rock that had a crack opening into a shallow cave. Myles, keeping with our Tolkienizing of China, thought it looked like a miniature Helm's Deep. We joked that should it hail again today, we could duck into the hole in the rock. It would be cozy.
Of course, it wasn't supposed to rain. Not with the spectacular blue skies we had. Even with the grey cover that seemed to alternate with fairer skies, it wasn't going to happen.
However.......
More after the jump
We set our sights on some Great Wall we could see from lower ground.
Unfortunately, these zoomed-in pictures would be as close as the kids and I would get.
The skies grew grey for the second time, but we weren't worried. It had done this already once during our hike, and cleared up fairly quickly.
As the groomed trail gave way to a rocky path, we acknowledged our willingness to tackle anything with a Great Wall reward at the end.
We reached one point, though, that we began to wonder if we would ever reach the Great Wall. The climb grew steeper and steeper, and yet we had no idea how much further we needed to go. The trail was giving me enough difficulty that I wanted to know if it were worth continuing. Randy went ahead to see what the trail looked like further up, and how close we were to the Great Wall.
Randy wasn't gone too terribly long when we heard an unexpected roll of thunder. He was back down not long after that and said that as far as he got, he could see the Great Wall, but not how far it would be, but he guessed it was still further away than we would like in the likely thunderstorm. We determined that, now with a third roll of thunder, down was our better option. We would probably get wet, but we would eventually reach our car.
Before he turned around, Randy took these two pictures. The storm clouds were clearly rolling in. He was almost level with a tower on another cliff, but not obviously close to any Great Wall or towers.
He took a second picture across the valley, Great Wall to his back. I'm sure the view would have been incredible, but it wasn't to happen that day.
We hoped it wouldn't rain too heavily before we reached the car. It started to sprinkle, more gently than the previous day, so I wanted to believe this meant that the storm wouldn't be as strong. Myles claimed that the drops he was feeling were as cold as those we felt the day before, in advance of the hail. I told him that wasn't likely. But as the rain got a little heavier, and colder, I started to see stuck to our clothes small, melting hailstones. It was indeed hailing on us. Again.
One more time it was impossible for us not to find a Tolkien reference to explain how we were thwarted twice in as many days trying to reach the highest points of the Great Wall on this ridge. Especially with the enormous boulders that lined the valley, we blamed stone-giants like Bilbo faced in chapter four of The Hobbit.
One thing that was really crazy about these two hailstorms we met in Moshikou was how very localized they were. Thursday I saw on twitter that down in Beijing proper they experienced heavy rain and lightning strikes instead of hail, yet when we arrived home in Changping, everything was dry. Friday night we drove to Shunyi from Huairou, watching the storm clouds over the mountains. In Shunyi, though, there had been no and continued to be no sign of rain for the few hours we were there.
Shortly after I took that picture, we were under light grey cloud cover. We tentatively got out of the car to head up a different trail than the day before, worried that it could rain again. But the clouds soon gave way, yielding to blue skies again.
At one point we stopped to rest in a shady spot next to this giant rock that had a crack opening into a shallow cave. Myles, keeping with our Tolkienizing of China, thought it looked like a miniature Helm's Deep. We joked that should it hail again today, we could duck into the hole in the rock. It would be cozy.
Of course, it wasn't supposed to rain. Not with the spectacular blue skies we had. Even with the grey cover that seemed to alternate with fairer skies, it wasn't going to happen.
However.......
More after the jump
We set our sights on some Great Wall we could see from lower ground.
Unfortunately, these zoomed-in pictures would be as close as the kids and I would get.
The skies grew grey for the second time, but we weren't worried. It had done this already once during our hike, and cleared up fairly quickly.
As the groomed trail gave way to a rocky path, we acknowledged our willingness to tackle anything with a Great Wall reward at the end.
We reached one point, though, that we began to wonder if we would ever reach the Great Wall. The climb grew steeper and steeper, and yet we had no idea how much further we needed to go. The trail was giving me enough difficulty that I wanted to know if it were worth continuing. Randy went ahead to see what the trail looked like further up, and how close we were to the Great Wall.
Randy wasn't gone too terribly long when we heard an unexpected roll of thunder. He was back down not long after that and said that as far as he got, he could see the Great Wall, but not how far it would be, but he guessed it was still further away than we would like in the likely thunderstorm. We determined that, now with a third roll of thunder, down was our better option. We would probably get wet, but we would eventually reach our car.
Before he turned around, Randy took these two pictures. The storm clouds were clearly rolling in. He was almost level with a tower on another cliff, but not obviously close to any Great Wall or towers.
He took a second picture across the valley, Great Wall to his back. I'm sure the view would have been incredible, but it wasn't to happen that day.
We hoped it wouldn't rain too heavily before we reached the car. It started to sprinkle, more gently than the previous day, so I wanted to believe this meant that the storm wouldn't be as strong. Myles claimed that the drops he was feeling were as cold as those we felt the day before, in advance of the hail. I told him that wasn't likely. But as the rain got a little heavier, and colder, I started to see stuck to our clothes small, melting hailstones. It was indeed hailing on us. Again.
One more time it was impossible for us not to find a Tolkien reference to explain how we were thwarted twice in as many days trying to reach the highest points of the Great Wall on this ridge. Especially with the enormous boulders that lined the valley, we blamed stone-giants like Bilbo faced in chapter four of The Hobbit.
Bilbo ... saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bangJust before we reached our car, the rain and hail stopped. It was late enough, though, that we didn't dare start up again. We were also cold and wet, with our only chance of getting dry and warm being sitting in the car. We decided that we may as well drive into Shunyi for our weekly import grocery shopping and a dinner of Indian food.
One thing that was really crazy about these two hailstorms we met in Moshikou was how very localized they were. Thursday I saw on twitter that down in Beijing proper they experienced heavy rain and lightning strikes instead of hail, yet when we arrived home in Changping, everything was dry. Friday night we drove to Shunyi from Huairou, watching the storm clouds over the mountains. In Shunyi, though, there had been no and continued to be no sign of rain for the few hours we were there.
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