First Beacon Tower

The First Beacon Tower of the Great Wall (Changcheng Diyi Dun) marks the absolute western end of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall, standing on a 56-metre-high bluff above the northern bank of the Taolai River gorge, approximately 7 kilometres south of Jiayuguan Fort. Originally built in 1539, the rammed-earth tower has survived remarkably intact despite centuries of desert erosion. It was from towers like this one that smoke signals were relayed east along the Wall — one fire for 100 enemy soldiers, two for 500, three for 1,000, and so on, communicating troop movements across thousands of kilometres in hours. The tower stands in stark, beautiful isolation in the gravel Gobi, with the Qilian Mountains beyond the gorge and the Taolai River cutting a green ribbon through the brown landscape below. A suspension bridge crosses the gorge and connects to a viewing platform on the opposite cliff for different perspectives of the tower and the wild river canyon.