After a week visiting the various sights around Snowdonia National Park and North Wales, Robin and I drove south to the Brecon Beacons area. I had visited this area over 25 years ago and had good memories of the area, including great hiking opportunities. We stayed at the Peterstone Court Hotel just outside Brecon (clearly our choice in lodging continues to get more and more comfortable).
After a couple of days poking about in and around Brecon, I planned another hike, this one being the most strenuous of all of the hikes we did in Wales. A trip up the highest peak in the park, Pen y Fan, was beyond Robin’s interest, so I found one that started at Talybont Reservoir and climbed to one of lower peaks, Craig y Fan. The hike was certainly not a complicated one: walk along the reservoir for a ways, turn up hill, climb to the peak of Allt Lwyd, walk the ridge between Allt Lwyd and Craig y Fan, walk across to the cairn Carn Pica and then descend via Twyn Du. However to do that, you need to hike about 11 km and climb about 600 m in elevation.
Once again we lucked out on the weather and had a mix of sun and cloud all day. Just after 10 minutes of hiking from our car in the parking area, we were surprised to find our way blocked by about a thousand sheep who were being herded down the reservoir road to farms lower down. It took about 30 minutes for the whole group to move past and Robin and I were fascinated by the behavior of the sheep and actions of the shepherds to keep them moving.
After we turned off the road onto the trail and started to gain elevation, we had great views back east to Tor-y-Foel, a hill I climbed with my cousin on our trip in the last 1980’s. The ridge climb between Allt Lwyd and Craig y Fan was the most spectacular part of the walk, with the ground failing away several hundred meters on both sides. Upon reaching the top of Craig y Fan, it was a bit of a slog over to the massive cairn marking the point of descent, Carn Pica. We stopped for a short snack and admired the tremendous view overlooking Talybont Reservoir and the Black Mountains further east. The trip down was also rather pleasant as the trail stayed on the top of the Twyn Du ridge most of the way back.
All in all, a great Brecon Beacons walk.
Download the gpx file of our hike.
Distance: 11.06 km; Elevation Gain: 600 m; Elevation Loss: 600 m
