Hiking adventures, close to home.
Six-days after the partial disappointment that came with my walk of Ysgyryd Fawr and Bryn Arw, I made my way back to the Black Mountains for a second crack at finalising a medium-level route for my walking group.
Continue reading “Llanthony Loop (Black Mountains)”
Since changing my job in June/July, I’ve developed a working rota that grants me every other Monday as a rest day, with no further questions asked. One one of these ‘happy Mondays’, I decided to make my way across the Severn Estuary and in to South Wales.
My goal was to climb ‘The Skirrid’ for the very first time and also try out a ten-to-eleven mile circular route that I’d sketched out in advance.
Less than a year after my first walk in the Western Brecon Beacons, I returned to the same area with a near-identical group of people. New peaks to be bagged, cairns to be spotted and a chance to visit ‘The Other Lake’, after wading knee-deep in to one of the pair, last summer.
Pen Y Fan, as you may well know, is the highest mountain in the southern half of the UK. It resides within the central Brecon Beacons of South Wales and is a popular place for all sorts of people, with a car park situated around 400m beneath the summit in terms of elevation.
I don’t often venture here, for the likely possibility that it is going to be bust. Perhaps not ‘Snowdon busy’ but, still. In fact, I’d not been to this particular mountain top for almost two whole years.
I doubt many of us can believe that August has come and gone. Two-thirds of the way through 2018 and we’ll soon be waving goodbye to the summer, before we’re ready for it.
I’ve managed to keep myself busy, clocking up the miles over the past month. Continue reading “#walk1000miles – August 2018”
All the way back in December 2017, I led a group walk in the Black Mountains that I soon grew to regret. One weekend after snow had fallen heavily across the region, I found the mountain tops were covered and we were struggling through depths up to our knees for much of our day. That’s without mentioning the rain waiting for us before we had a chance to put our boots on and the gale-force winds arriving from the east.
I’d thought about repeating the same route but have always held reservations over the small car park at Black Hill. So, for this outing, I decided to park elsewhere and lead a longer route along different paths.
As far as the Brecon Beacons are concerned, I’ve explored the main ‘Central’ peaks (Pen Y Fan and co.) several times. I’ve also hiked several times around the eastern end of the National Park, where its boundary laps on to the Black Mountains range.
This walk would be my first experience of hiking in the western Beacons. I was hardly going to turn down an opportunity to climb to the highest point of The Black Mountain (Y Mynydd Du).
