Had an absolutely awesome day out on the hills in South Wales recently. Weather perfect with very little wind and quiet.
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Stunning; the best footage I’ve seen of this place! My favourite hillwalk from back in the day before my knees gave out (I can climb mountains, slowly, but I can’t descend them!). My preferred route was directly up the hill from the Neaudd car park on to Fan Hir along the edge of the the forestry, and that’s the hard work done for the day! Along Fan Hir to Corn Ddu, Pen y Fan, & Cribyn, then back down along the Roman Road that you came up by.
Other favourites were from Cwm Llwch farm via Llyn Cwm Llwch (magical spot) and the Tommy Jones obelisk, and the ‘lunar landscape’ walk from Torpantau to Fan y Big.
When I started hillwalking back in the 70s, you could do Pen y Fan midweek and not see more walkers than you could count on one hand all day. Black Mountain to the west you would have to yourself most days. Then you could have a night out in town, 20 pints of beer, steak & chips, best girl in the brothel, taxi home, all for sixpence and still have change; yer tell kids that terday, they don’t berleeve yer…
The mountain stuff is true, though.
Thankyou so much form your praise! I so enjoyed filming this one, but I ran out of battery (3) just as I was starting the saddle on the last hour or two of walking. I really need 5 batteries I think, to be confident of having enough for these big days out. That first hour of light was so nice, but quite honestly it was just superb all the way and with so little wind I was able to push it out a bit.
Midweek, from what I hear, it is still very quiet up there. It was a Saturday when I went , so I was surprised how quiet it was, that is, at least on Cribyn. From a distance, I could see Pen Y Fan was very busy, at dawn. But that’s to be expected at the weekend and It’s that much closer to the carpark on the west side of the Craig Gwaun Taf. The last time I was up on Pen Y Fan was in the mid 1990s, so this was a real rediscovery for me. I’d read about the clockwise route but just felt, setting off in the dark, that steep start by the forestry plantation was a bit rude first thing!!! I came down that way though. It’s a bit of a knee grinder!! Do you get out on the hills still?
Nah. sadly my knees are fucked, largely a result of doing it later in life when I was a bit overweight and not really fit enough! I’ve got some good memories, but I miss it, especially now I’m a droner. Not having a car doesn’t help either; you need a car to go walking… Last time I was out was 8 years ago and we did Llyn Cwm Cwnwyn on a glorious summer evening with the peaks catching the last of the sunlight, magnificent, but I was in real trouble coming back down even with a stick, completely exhausted when we got back to the car, and it’s not even all that steep from the Llyn. What a magical spot, though!
The lighter nights increase the viability of flying by bus (Welsh Assembly OAP bus pass), though, and I have several adventures planned, notably Pontsticill reservoir, with the plughole and the Brecon Mountain Railway, and there are some pretty good views of the horseshoe from there! Needs a bit of heavy rain to get the reservoir levels up so that the plughole is in operation; I have a plan to get vid from below reservoir water level, but i doubt I’ll have the nerve for that! An advantage of this trip would be the Red Cow, which I’ve always found to be a particularly friendly place!
If you want solulitude. it’s getting harder to find in the Bannau Brycheiniog, but it’s still there on the lesser peaks. One I can reccommend, having found it particularly satisfying and not too strenuous, is Fan Gyhirych, the westernmost of the Fforest Fawr summits. Park car at the summit of the Heol Senni pass road from Ystradfellte to Heol Senni, and walk west, a gentle rise to the saddle between Fans Nedd and Gyhirych, from which it is a fairly easy ascent to the summit. Views are stupendous, the entire Devonian Sandstone escarpemnt, but towards Swansea, the Gower, and Carmarthen as well, and clear vistas to the north including Pumlumon and Cadair Idris.
You won’t see more than a handful of other people, probably paraglider pilots, on weekends, and probably nobody midweek! An underrated experience!