The Fforest Fawr and the Brecon Beacons

Wednesday 18th September 2002

Continuing with my holiday from 2002 spent in the Breacon Beacons National Park I am still plagued by a lack of details. I didn’t write up an account of these walks at the time and so much time has passed that I am having difficulty remembering what walk I did on those days. My memory is notoriously faulty so I am reliant on a sketchy comment made in my diary at the time that was more concerned with problems that I was having with my ankle than with any actual description of the walk. The best I can find is a comment to say that I was in agony trying to walk up a hill at the start of the day. Based on this feeble description I have guessed that this was the day that I did my first walk around the Fforest Fawr. Although the national park is called Brecon Beacons the actual Brecon Beacons occupies only a small portion of the whole park. On the extreme west lies the vast area of the Black Mountain, while on the eastern edge lies the Black Mountains (no connection). In the middle of the park is the Brecon Beacons and just to the west of them is the Fforest Fawr.

Fforest Fawr translates as ‘Great Forest’ referring to its historic use as a royal hunting ground that is now an extensive upland area at the centre of Wales’ first Geopark due to its outstanding geological heritage. This designation had not taken place when I walked there over ten years ago and in fact the area is probably the least visited in the whole national park. I parked on the A4067 at the top of Bwlch Bryn-rhudd and immediately began walking up the steep hillside to the south of the road up to the top of Fan Gyhirych. As already mentioned the steepness of this hill aggravated my ankle, but I don’t remember any specific problems with my ankle, though I do remember that this climb was very steep and fortunately it wasn’t very prolonged as I was soon able to enjoy the sunshine at the top.

Setting off along a path that was sometimes muddy, I walked east briefly walking along clear tracks before crossing Bwlch y Duwynt and climbing to the trig point at the top of Fan Nedd. I descended the steep slopes on the other side and briefly joined a road before walking along the Sarn Helen Roman road through a wood and down to a ford across the Nedd Fechan where a large walking group were congregated. Shortly after the ford I left the crowds behind as I took the route of the Beacons Way through a delightful area that is marked on maps more recent to the one I was using at the time as the Ogaf-Ffynon-Ddu Pant Mawr National Nature Reserve. Cutting a corner near the now disused Penwyllt Stone Quarry I joined the track of an old railway that took me back to my car. After my agonies at the start of the walk my ankle eased during the day to let me to finish a good walk in remote upland country.

Thursday 19th September 2002

Despite managing to complete the previous day's walk, I was now seriously considering returning home and I thought I would not be able to do any more walking. However, the next day my ankle seemed better and as the weather was even better than the day before I couldn’t resist going for a walk over the Brecon Beacons. Despite the problems I’d had with my ankle, this walk ended up being the most strenuous of the week, and certainly the best. Unfortunately that is all the description of the walk my diary has given me except for a mention of a dam at the end of the walk, which I had thought was a reference to Talybont Reservoir, but I believe that walk was the following year and wasn’t over the Brecon Beacons. I think this walk is one that I have done several times before and in both directions, but this was the first time.

I parked at a car park on the edge of the Talybont Forest at the top of the pass between Talybont and Pontsticill. I remember my old car struggling to get up the steep road from the reservoir to the car park, but my present car on subsequent visits has had no such problem. I set off north to climb a fabulous ravine formed by the Nant Bwrefwr and around the edge of Craig y Fan Ddu and Graig Fan Las. At the pass of Bwlch y Ddwyalt I turned left and walked along the top of the northern edges of the Brecon Beacons around the top of the valleys that create such a dramatic picture of the beacons. My route took me around the top of Cwm Oergwm to Fan y Big, Cwm Cynwyn to Cribyn and Cwm Sere to the top of the biggest beacon, Pen y Fan. I was now really enjoying the sunny weather and was walking stripped down to my t-shirt while earlier in the week I'd had to wear both my fleece and my jumper.

From Pen y Fan I walked over Corn Du and along the top of Craig Gwaun Taf and Graig Fan Ddu until I reached the trig point on Twyn Mwyalchod. From there I turned east and dropped steeply down to the dam for Lower Neuadd Reservoir. On my last visit to this area the reservoir was full, but on this occasion and on all but the most recent maps this reservoir has been empty. I believe that it was on this dam that my ankle finally gave up and I had hobble along a track through the Taf Fechan Forest onto the road and all the way back to my car. This walk was easily the highlight of a good week's holiday spent walking in the Brecon Beacons. This national park covers a wide variety of terrains, but the highlight is the hills that lend the park its name. In good weather the Brecon Beacons is always a fabulous walk.

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.