Friday 18th February 2005
I want to talk about a long weekend in the Black Mountains when I spent a couple of days' walking in the area where I cut my walking teeth. My first walk in the Black Mountains was in 1999 while I was still a walking virgin; the only walks that I had done up to that date were in the Peak District. By choosing to venture into the Black Mountains and ultimately the rest of the Brecon Beacons National Park I was engaging in my first walks on hills above 2000 feet. It was the start of my walking career, and now I was coming back to where it had all begun. I hadn't visited the Brecon Beacons the previous year and the year before that I'd been to the park twice but neither time had I been to the Black Mountains on the eastern edge of the national park. You have to go back to 2002 for the last time I did any walking in the Black Mountains and it was in 2002 that I first went to the Lake District. I had graduated from the Black Mountains school of walking and was ready to have a go at the best that England has to offer.
So it was with a great deal of nostalgia that I drove to the Black Mountains on that Friday morning in February. Besides nostalgia, my goal for this weekend was to walk the small areas of the Black Mountains that I had never walked before, most of which I was able to do on the Friday. I parked at the car park beside Llanthony Priory in the Vale of Ewyas having always had a soft spot for this isolated valley and being back it seemed like it had never changed. Once ready I set off from the car park across the road and down a short lane across a footbridge. Following the signs for Cwm Bwchel I turned right and headed up the side of the hill past Cwm Bwchel farm beside the stream up to Bal-Bach. When I was here in 2000, still a rookie on my second trip to the Black Mountains, I had headed up the southern side of the valley rather than the northern side as here. If memory serves I think I was directed that way (probably via Troed rhiw-mon) by a sign that indicated the other way was blocked. I think I must have made a mistake five years ago, but there were no such worries this time as I quickly reached the col at the top of the valley. Five years before I had headed back down the hill across the moorland to the east of Bal-Mawr bypassing a hill that I had not been up until this day. Heading uphill I achieved the summit of Bal-Mawr which is blessed with a Trig Point but sadly is a couple of metres short of the all important two thousand feet mark. The weather on top of the hill was very cold with a strong westerly wind that tested my winter clothing to its utmost. I couldn't help thinking about what I must have been wearing that day five years before. I had worn jeans and the cheap pair of walking boots that I had bought when I'd first started walking, which was a world of difference from what I was now wearing especially in the footwear. This weekend I was wearing my third ever pair of walking boots, Karrimor KSB 300 GTX, which I had recently bought and was now being subjected to its first mountain walk with no problems to report. If I was wearing the clothes that I'd worn five years before I think I would have had serious problems on top of the hill, but those conditions were nothing compared with some that I have experienced over the last year or two.
Continuing along the ridge I was amazed by how narrow it was since most of the ridges in the Black Mountains are fairly wide but this one was so narrow you could see the valleys on either side, which just shows what I had been missing all these years. The highest point on the walk was passed at Chwarel y Fan Quarry before heading down to a cairn beside the stone marked on maps as the "Blacksmith's Anvil". In the thick mist and high wind I wasn't sure if the cairn was the one I wanted but a path crossing mine at that point convinced me that it was, so I headed down the north-easterly path back down into the Vale of Ewyas. As it happened that wasn't exactly the path I wanted but it soon joined the main path from the Blacksmith's Anvil. Even after all these years I still make mistakes, but don't we all!
Descending the hillside I was once again reminded of previous times when I had been down this path. Five years before during the same week though not on the same day that I had climbed up to Bal-Bach, I recall having enormous difficulty in this descent, slipping over and getting rather muddy, on more than one occasion. Don’t forget that I had been wearing those cheap boots (made by Johnscliffe, whoever they are!), they must have had very poor treads on them. My new Karrimor boots were perfect in what must have been similar conditions underfoot, which just shows what three times the price can do! As I descended the hillside it started raining and a rainbow appeared with the end of the rainbow in Capel-y-Ffin at the head of the Vale of Ewyas. Since 1999 Capel-y-Ffin has held a special place in my heart so that rainbow endorsed my feelings about the place and for this whole valley. For me it really is like a pot of gold. After eating my lunch sitting on the bridge over the Nant Bwch in Capel-y-Ffin I headed up the hill to the east of the hamlet (it's must be too small to be called a village, probably too small to be called a hamlet as it's just one house and a church!).
This path is very special to me. I have walked either up or down it many times and every time I have been struck by the amazing views that it affords of the valley. The bowl shaped glacial valley is shown at its best half way up the path and I have always had to stop while on the path to admire the view. I went up this path on my very first day in the Black Mountains on a hot day at the beginning of September in 1999 and at a similar time of the day as now, that is only about an hour past midday. I remember sweating buckets on that first climb and really struggling to get up the admittedly steep path. This time however it was a much colder day and even though I have put on a bit of weight over the winter I am still lighter than I was five years before and I hope considerably fitter. I had no real difficulty and relished experiencing the path on which I have many fond memories again. Despite the difficulties of five and a half years before I remember feeling ecstatic sitting on a stile enjoying the shade from the sun in the wood near the Vision Farm. The sheer joy of that experience has stayed with me and fuelled my walking ever since. That is why I hold this path in such high regard and why I keep coming back to it even now two and a half years since I was last on the path (and as I recall that walk in 2002 had been for old times sake being a reverse of the first walk I did in the Black Mountains in 1999).
Eventually I reached the pile of stones that marks the crossing of the Offa's Dyke Path on top of the ridge. Turning right I headed south-east along the ridge mimicking the walk I did five years before when I'd walked to Bal-Bach before descending slowly down into the valley. That walk had been the second time I ascended the hill from Capel-y-Ffin; curiously it wasn't until I descended it on my next trip to the Black Mountains that I discovered the correct way up the hill. Both those times up I went the wrong way not once, but twice! As I proceeded along the ridge it occurred to me that that walk five years before had taken me all day to complete having arrived back at Llanthony Priory after 5 pm. My walk now was surely longer and yet I reached the path to descend to Llanthony at 2.30, which was far too early. I guess I really must walk a lot quicker these days (especially when going up hill). I then remembered that I had never walked along the Offa's Dyke Path between the two paths from Llanthony so I continued along the ridge south until I reached the col just before Hatterall Hill. On my second ever day in the Black Mountains I walked from Llanthony Priory onto the ridge at this point and headed south along the Offa's Dyke Path past the remains of an iron age fort and round to the start of the valley at Cwmyoy. Now I returned to the Priory from this point and to my car by going over the path that I had used on that day.
All and all, this was a great walk down memory lane as well as a chance to walk a few bits of the Black Mountains that I had still never walked. From Llanthony I drove up the valley to the youth hostel situated just over a mile north of Capel-y-Ffin that is not only the highest hostel in either England or Wales but also one of the nicest I've ever stayed in. It was a pleasure to make its acquaintance again after all these years, so it is sad to reflect that this hostel has now closed, which is truly a great tragedy and a loss to the hostel network.
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