Return to the Black Mountains

Monday 16th September 2002

As usually happens at this time of the year, I have run out of recent walks to talk about and there are none more planned until Easter, so I have a whole month of posts to fill with nothing to write about. My practice over the last couple of years has been to talk at this time of the year about the walks that I did a long time ago, but I have come across a problem with that: I can’t remember the walks. Last autumn I wrote about my first ever holiday in the Lake District in 2002, which I had written about in my diary at the time, during the holiday, so I could easily now write about those walks. But for my subsequent walks that year in the Black Mountains and the rest of the Brecon Beacons National Park I wrote next to nothing in my diary. At the time I didn’t feel it was necessary as I was only away for a couple of days, and it actually felt quite liberating not having to talk about what I was doing.

And so now we come to a week’s holiday in the middle of September 2002 that I spent in the Brecon Beacons where the most detail that I wrote about these walks in my diary was that they were good. With a lot of guesswork and a racking of my brains I think I know what walk I did on this date: I did a copy of the first walk I ever did in the Black Mountains, indeed the first walk I ever did up any mountain. I think I didn’t start the walk until about noon as I drove to Wales through the morning, but I still managed to complete the same walk that had taken me all day in 1999 in little more than four hours. I wasn’t taking any pictures back then so this post (and all the posts this month) will have to be illustrated with a picture of the area from a subsequent walk.

Starting from the Gospel Pass, I walked up to the top of Hay Bluff and from there along the Offa’s Dyke Path until I reached the top of the fabulous ridge that had so engaged my enthusiasm three years earlier before descending amid stunning views into the Vale of Ewyas near Capel-y-ffin. The walk was completed by climbing up to the top of Darren Lwyd and then north to the stunning viewpoint of Twmpa where a leisurely descent took me back down to top of the Gospel Pass. I stayed overnight at the now tragically closed Capel-y-ffin Youth Hostel before travelling on to the start of the next walk the following morning. This is a lovely little walk that will always bring special memories to my mind. I was spending a lot of time walking in that area at the time and this walk had in a nutshell everything that kept drawing me back to the area. I’m sure it won’t be too long before I make a return visit, but sadly I won’t be able to stay in the hostel next time.

Tuesday 17th September 2002

The next day I drove south out of the Vale of Ewyas and then north up into the valley of Grwyne Fawr. This was a long drive to move what is actually just a short distance as the crow flies with a single broad ridge separating the two valleys. After parking in the Mynydd Du Forest car park I set off up the valley along the track past Grwyne Fawr Reservoir all the way up to the head of the valley. Turning left I climbed onto the ridge that borders the valley up to Waun Fach, the highest point in the Black Mountains. The previous Easter I had visited this summit for the first time and found a great lump of stone at the top surrounded by a wide area of thick mud. After a warm summer the mud had now dried out, which enabled me to finally reach the huge stone that is generally considered to mark the summit of this flat topped hill.

Continuing along the ridge I passed over the smaller top of Pen y Gadair Fawr and onwards walking between the heather moorland on my right and the eaves of Mynydd Du Forest on my left. Eventually I entered the wood and dropped down the steep sides to the bottom of the Grwyne Fawr valley where I found a footpath that follows the river upstream all the way back to the car park. This was another enjoyable walk in the pleasing Black Mountains, an area that seems made for easy, relaxing walking. Despite having now been to the Lake District I was still quite inexperienced at hillwalking and any bad weather would still have sent me diving for cover, never to come out. Fortunately the weather was good for these walks so I was able to walk along the long grassy ridges in comfort while enjoying the sights and the sounds of the Black Mountains.