In the past when you wanted to go to the Great Wall of China at MuTainYu near Beijing, you would drive almost all the way to the entrance before the parking lots were in sight. From there you would walk through an area of huts and some permanent structures that had shops and restaurants. As you worked your way up the hill, you would come to an area where you could purchase your tickets, all 3 of them. You need one ticket to enter the park, one for the gondola ride up, and another one for the luge ride down. If you didn’t want to take the luge run down, you could take the gondola or the ski lift, which was an open air bench much like the gondola, but not enclosed.
Now the entrance has been moved a little further down the hill, and some of the charm of the mom and pop huts has been lost, in my opinion. At the new entrance there are nice new clean buildings where you can purchase your tickets for the entrance, gondola, park entrance, and van ride to the old entrance. As you can see from my list, you now need to get a ticket for the bus ride to the entrance and back to the parking area. You will also need to buy your luge ticket at the old location, because it is run by a separate company.
At the new parking area you will find the mom and pop huts have been replaced by new buildings. You can still buy the delicious dried fruit there and get souvenirs, but there is definitely a different feel to this location compared to the old one.
One challenge I see with the new system is with the buses. Nobody wants to wait for their bus, especially if you are about to see the Great Wall of China. I have never had to wait long for the bus going up, but on my last trip, I had to wait WAY too long for the ride down. Hopefully you won’t have to wait in the hot sun like my friends and I did to go back down the mountain.
Enjoy your time on the Great Wall of China, and I highly recommend taking the luge run down the mountain!