Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains

Alice is off to the Himalayas in the spring to walk to Everest Base Camp with Girlguiding UK's Everest 100 challenge. (Yes - I AM very jealous!) So we went off for a quick weekend's jaunt around South Wales to get her fit!

Day 1 - Beacons

We'd looked at various routes, but wanted something with quite a lot of height gain and a fair distance. We settled on a tour of the main peaks, starting by the Neuadd Reservoir dam and taking in Pen y Fan, Cribyn, Fan y Big, Craig Cwareli and Craig y Fan Ddu, and then dropping down to the car park and returning along the old railway to the car.

View from Cribyn

It turned out to be a great choice and a lovely day out. It was windy and chilly when we set off, with the wind blustering us as we wandered along Craig Gwaun Taf. As we walked the mist rolled in and out, and we ascended a cloud capped Pen y Fan in before dropping out of the fog again on our way down to Cribyn. The rest of the trip was clear, cool and blustery, and despite being a total of 13 miles and 1200m of ascent, we were both in good shape at the end - which bodes well for Alice's jaunt in the Himalayas!

Day 2 - Black Mountains

A shorter walk on Sunday, as we had to get off home. We ended up doing the walk that I'd planned for the washed out May 2007 trip. This started at the car park (pull off!) at 234228, climbed steeply across the fields to the west and contoured round and then climbed Pen Cerrig Calch. It was very wind on the tops - felt perfect in the sunshine. Resting on top of Pen Cerrig Calch we could see the glint of the Bristol Channel and the hills of Somerset beyond. On along the ridge heading North West to Allt Mawr and then a very windy descent down to Pen Twyn Glas, the gusts cutting round the steep edge and threatening to unfoot us. Sharp right and back along the ridge of Tal Trwynau, descending through the old mine workings and back to the car. A quick 8 mile jaunt with some 650m of height gain, so good training for those mountain passes.

All in all a great little weekend!

KML Files:
Day 1 - Beacons
Day 2 - Black Mountains