Walking: Carmarthen Fans and glacial cwms (the Black Mountain area)

I finally got to go on a nice long walk with Ed again, which we haven't really been able to do since moving to Wales.  We've been wanting to walk in the Black Mountain area for a while as we had heard that the views were pretty amazing and it's a less popular area than the central Beacons, meaning that we were much more likely to be able to enjoy a walk without too many other people.  The weather wasn't meant to be particularly great on the day we had planned to do this walk, but we'd worked out this walk would probably take us around 4.5 hours and that's an acceptable amount of time for us to be out in bad weather.

The inspiration for this walk came from the Cicerone book 'Walking in The Brecon Beacons' and we mostly followed the route recommended in it, apart from at the end when we decided to take a more direct route to the car park away from the work happening at Llyn y Fan Fach.  We started at the Llyn y Fan Fach car park and, as the stream was too high for us to cross at the recommended point, headed back along the road to connect with the more southern Beacons Way that leads up to the Bannau Sir Gaer ridge.

There were some steep bits as you head up, but for the most part, this was a very manageable section for us and we didn't feel the need to take a break at any point.  We knew the weather would mean we wouldn't always get a great view, but when we did first get to the ridge of Bannau Sir Gaer we could see down onto Llyn y Fan Fach.  This view was only marginally ruined by all the vans etc that needed to be there and the very dubious myth that's connected to it.

The cloud did come back down again after this and we ended up walking the rest of the ridge surrounded by white and getting quite wet.  However, the path was very obvious and we were pretty confident that we could safely navigate the rest of the ridge so we carried on.  We also quite like walking in these conditions as it's a completely different experience walking whilst being cocooned in the cloud.  You tend to come across a lot fewer people in these conditions as well. 

Despite the lack of views, we were still able to pick out navigational features like the cairn at Picws Du (which is probably a prehistoric funerary monument), and the trig point at Fan Brycheiniog which marked the highest point of this walk.  There are a few paths along this way that head down from the ridge back into the valley, but we stayed at the top until we reached Bwich Gledd and then headed down to Llyn y Fan Fawr.

We hadn't been able to see this lake from the top, but it was a very pretty site once we were there and it also looked like a very good body of water to swim in.  Something we've taken note of for a later trip.  The clouds did of course lift once we had gotten down and we got a much better view of this glacier valley from this point on.  We were both pretty wet by this point, but still nicely warm and just a little less worried about the puddles we were putting our feet into as we headed west following the northern Beacons Way back towards Llyn y Fan Fach.

It was just before reaching Llyn y Fan Fach that we stopped following the route recommended by the book after we had noticed the path that cut off and headed more directly towards the Llyn y Fan Trout and Salmon Hatchery.  Unfortunately, it's the wrong time of year to watch the trout jumping, but it was still a surprisingly pretty spot to look around nonetheless.  

When we had been at the top we had decided that it had been far too windy and wet to stop for a lunch break, and as neither of us was feeling particularly hungry we decided to just keep going until we felt like we needed to eat.  This actually ended up being when we had gotten back to the car and had changed into a set of nice dry clothes that we always keep in the back of our car.  I actually find it surprisingly easy to walk long distances without eating and I don't think I'm alone in that.  There must just be something about walking that shuts everything else off, but you definitely feel very hungry once you do finally stop.

This was a great walk and we enjoyed it despite the lack of views.  The weather didn't put us off, in fact, it meant we got to enjoy it with fewer people than probably would have been there had the weather been great.  It's definitely an area we'd like to explore more of as it feels a little different from the central Beacons where we spend most of our time.  Time to plan some more walks I think, but maybe looking at ones where we can come in from the east as that would be easier for us to get to.  We obviously have to walk straight up the Black Mountain as well at some point, but I feel like that would be a time when I wanted a good clear day.

Walking: Beacons Way Stage 5 - Storey Arms to Glyntawe

I've already written about the section of the Cambrian Way that I did a little while ago which also starts at the Storey Arms and ends in Glyntawe, but takes quite a different route to get there.  In that post I wrote about how I wanted to try the Beacons Way next to see the difference and, a couple of weeks later, I did.

The Cambrian Way is definitely the more direct route, but with the terrain being a little more difficult and the route a little less obvious I was expecting them to actually take around the same time despite the additional miles on the Beacons Way.  As before I actually started my walk at Pont ar Daf car park and walked up to Storey Arms before heading up the side of Fan Fawr and following the route on my OS Map.  As before I won't go into a description of the route as this is easily available online and is marked really well on the OS maps.  

As before, and with a number of my walks, I really lucked out on the weather meaning that, whilst I did need to repeatedly apply suncream, I did get really good views all day long.  This route was a lot easier to navigate through and most of the time it was pretty obvious which path I was meant to be on, even without too many sign posts, but there were still a couple of times where I needed to quickly check the app on my phone to ensure that I had actually taken the right turning.

The ease of the route meant that this walk was a lot kinder on the legs then the Cambrian Way, but the section on the Roman road was a little unpleasant on the feet and made being able to put them up during my lunch a must to ensure that the last section was actually enjoyable.  On the plus though, the Roman road does take you past another standing stone, Maen Madoc, which is believed to have been erected during the late Roman Period (though there is some thought that it may have been originally been erected in the Bronze Age) possibly as a burial stone given the Latin inscription on the side.

One of the best things about this walk was that, even though this is a relatively popular route, I was able to do it on a week day so that I mostly had it to myself.  In fact, I only really past three people giving me the time away that I needed and usually hope for when I'm walking in the mountains.

This time I decided to not go all the way the Glyntawe as I had already walked that section and cut off onto the path that runs south, parallel with the A4067, to end my walk at the Ancient Briton for a pint (always a good way to end a walk I feel) and to meet up with a friend.  This is a really nice walk and I would recommend it, especially to someone who is wanting to spend a day out in the mountains, but isn't 100% confident with their navigational abilities.  The wildlife on this route did seem to be a little less, but there's still a good amount of history to look at, spanning about 2000 years of Welsh history.  Even with low cloud cover you would still have plenty to see.  And now it's time for me to start organising my next walking trip.