The Black Mountain

Monday 26th August 2019

As part of my nostalgia tour of Wales to celebrate twenty years since my first hill walk I was in the Brecon Beacons National Park to do a walk that I first completed in 2003 up the Black Mountain. The next time I did a walk up the Black Mountain was in 2009 while I was doing a highlights tour of Wales for my tenth anniversary, and on that occasion I did a similar walk but in the opposite direction, and I have not been back since. The Black Mountain is amongst the least visited areas of the park for me and every time I have walked up it I have headed for the north-eastern corner where the highest point can be found and completely ignored most of the rest of this vast upland area. I had considered going to the western tip of the mountain until I decided that the best way to honour the walks that I have done in the past was to cover the same ground. Therefore on a hot Bank Holiday Monday I drove from a misty Brecon over the pass into the sunny upper Tawe valley.

As before I parked near the Gwyn Arms and set off across the lovely wooded gorge of the Avon Haffes and up onto the open hillside. It was already hot as I toiled up the hill into the vast hinterland of the Black Mountain with hardly any wind and the sweat was pouring off me. In 2003 I had diverted off the main path to explore the various shallow tops in the area all with a scattering of limestone outcropping, but now with the heat I didn’t feel as if I had the energy. I was walking through a fascinating area of shake holes following a track between Castell y Geifr and Twyn Du in the middle of the thin band of limestone that runs across the south of the park. The rock that dominates the Brecon Beacons National Park is red sandstone as I saw the day before on the highest peaks. Eventually the gradient eased and a slight breeze developed that cooled me sufficiently to encourage me to leave the path and head towards the top of Disgwylfa that lies near the northern edge of the band of limestone.

When I reached the small, scattered limestone pavements at the top I had a great view west across the Black Mountain towards other limestone-covered tops such as Cefn Carn Fadog and Foel Fraith. Descending back onto the path I continued north crossing the Afon Giedd and after climbing over a shallow hill I left the limestone behind to drop down to the Afon Twrch. After crossing the river I branched off the main path to take an increasingly faint track through the grass that headed up the hill to the north. Instead of following a compass bearing I was following this sheep trod that turned around the side of the hill so eventually I came to my senses and turned north up the vast, grassy, featureless slopes. This was a very tiring and demoralising toil up the hill towards a top that I could not see and that never seemed to get any closer, but eventually, and with much relief, I reached the north-eastern escarpment of the Black Mountain.

There I found stunning views across the steep slopes below Bannau Sir Gaer that were amazing and compensated for the exhausting climb up a pathless hill. At the cairn on the nearby 677 metre top at the western end of the escarpment I stopped to have my lunch before heading off along the path beside the steep drop with extensive, but misty views north although my eye, and my camera, was only looking along the escarpment. After passing over Picws Du I had to endure a steep descent to Bwlch Blaen-Twrch, but it was the steep climb up the other side in the hot weather that really wore me out and made me think it was too hot for mountain walking. On reaching the top of Fan Foel I turned south with the escarpment and found a headwind that kept me cool as I made my way up to the highest point on the Black Mountain, Fan Brycheiniog.

From this point the walk was an absolute delight as I followed the escarpment down to Bwlch Giedd ignoring the clear path that descends steeply down the escarpment and I had climbed in 2009 to continue along the Fan Hir ridge with stunning views ahead of me towards the Tawe valley and back along the edge. This long descent was effortless with a cool breeze and a gentle gradient all the way down to the bottom of the valley. It is debateable whether this walk would have been better in the other direction as although that would have eliminated the long climb to Bannau Sir Gaer it would have robbed me of the glorious descent down Fan Hir, so ultimately I think that tedious, pathless climb is unavoidable. This was a fabulous walk in fabulous weather, but it was a little too hot when I didn’t have a cooling breeze.