Great Outdoors

There is a new website for hillwalkers listing 1564 peaks in the UK. It provides a lot of links to maps (Google, Streetmap and Get-a-Map) and to the Geograph website for photos.

Most lists of hills in the last century or so have been using criteria based in feet, e.g. the summit height. Such lists include the Munros, Corbetts and Hewitts. This website uses prominence in metres which is compatible with modern Ordnance Survey maps.

I have been a fan of using prominence as it is usually a pretty good indicator of how distinct a hill or mountain is. A good example is Sugar Loaf in South Wales which is a mere 596 metres high yet commands views in all directions due to its high prominence of 413 m.

One of my real pleasures over the last month was to see rime in many places. When we lived in Oberbayern it was quite common that there would be a month of freezing fog in the November-January timeframe and the rime on trees and bushes would be very spectacular. With mild southern English winters I have seen little rime in the last decade.

 
Around the New Year we really enjoyed seeing the rime on vegitation in Hitland. Much of the vegetation near frozen waterways had a good half centimetre of rime.

When walking in South Wales there were some interesting looking grasses such as those above on the Rhiw yr Ysgyfarnog ridge in the Brecon Beacons. Like in Hitland there was a clear blue sky so I could enjoy the contrast between the rime and the sunshine.

Back in the south of England the rime was very evident on the downs with a thick covering on bushes and trees two weekends ago. Sadly it all melted on 11th January.

Nevertheless I have seem more rime this winter than for a decade.

On a previous trip to South Wales we drove from Brecon to the M4 using the A470. From that road we got a great view of Craig Cerrig-gleisiad with Fan Fawr beyond. The light was beginning to fade and Fan Fawr had a good covering of snow. I thought it would be fun to return to Fan Fawr 34 years after crossing the Fforest Fawr by foot.

I had originally planned to park below Craig Cerrig-gleisiad but since there were plenty of  parking spaces at Storey Arms, I decided to stop there. There was a path leading directly westward and after going up the slope from Storey Arms, the view to Fan Fawr opens up. With Storey Arms being at a height of 439 m, it is not a very difficult walk to the summit with just under 300 metres of ascent. There is a cairn at the summit but the trig point is about 700 metres further to the south west.

There were showers passing to the south west.

Since I had arrived around midday and had four hours of good light I did not descend to the reservoir below but instead walked round the side of Fan Fawr 'haggis style' gradually descending to the saddle between Fan Fawr and Craig Cerrig-gleisiad.
 

The sun broke through and the yellow grass reminded me of what I had seen as a teenager. This time though the ground was frozen so there was no squelching through wet ground.

From Craig Cerrig-gleisiad there was an interesting view to the north. The cloud base was about 800 m but there was fog covering Brecon and surrounding villages. There was a slice of good visibility sandwiched between cloud and fog.

I walked north to the trig point at Fan Frynych and then headed back towards Storey Arms. After Craig Cerrig-gleisiad, I looked for the Beacons Way path but initially found nothing. The cloudbase lifted and it was possible to glimpse Corn Du and Pen y Fan across the valley.

Above Craig y Fro, I picked up a path that led across a few frozen streams. There were some interesting partially frozen waterfalls.

This one I particularly liked due to its large icicles and the running water below. Between this waterfall and the A470 there were a total of 4 frozen falls.

This waterfall was fairly close to the road. I was about 100 metres from the road when I managed to slip on some snow-covered grass and land hard on my tailbone. I felt the jolt right through my spine to my head...but did not actually see stars!

I got back to my car by 16:00 so completed the walk on time. It was not hard walking but I just enjoyed the emptiness...I only saw one walker all day.

The Fforest Fawr is an upland area in the Brecon Beacons National Park. It lies between the Brecon Beacons in the east and the Black Mountain (Fan Brycheiniog) in the west and has summits that are not so high.

The picture above shows two of the summits - Fan Nedd (left) and Fan Gyhirych (right) seen from Craig Gwaun Taf. The easternmost summit - Fan Fawr - lies above Storey Arms on the A470.

When I was 17, I planned a walking trip that started in Llangadog in the West, then went up onto the Black Mountain escarpment. We camped at Llyn y Fan Fach then continued over Fan Brycheiniog along a line that is similar to the Beacons Way.

We headed across the Fforest Fawr although I do not think we ascended any of the summits. I recall walking through often somewhat boggy ground with brown/yellow grass. Unfortunately I no longer have a record of our route.

We had planned to go over the Brecon Beacons and down to Crickhowell, then to do a bit of the Black Mountains before picking up a train at Abergaveny. I ended up letting down the group by feeling unwell above Storey Arms. We decided to abandon the trip and hitched down to Merthyr Tydfil station. I have not been in this area again until this month.

For the New Year we returned to the Netherlands and stayed again with my brother-in-law. The temperatures were down to -7C so ice formed nicely and was thick enough to skate on. We took another walk through the Hitland polder.

There were loads of families out skating with skaters ranging from kids who could barely walk to the elderly.

There were plenty of water birds about such as these ducks which had found a small patch of unfrozen water. There were also hundreds of coots and geese in the polder and plenty of swans and herons.

There were plenty of contrasts:- the agricultural land and the fields, the frozen expanses of water and the open ones. What you do not realise is that the "ditches" between fields are actually over two metres deep.
 

I enjoyed the rime that was very visible on the vegetation and was several millimetres in size.

I enjoyed seeing older people out on the ice (though I cannot skate myself). Some such as the trio here were very skilled and synchronised. They young guy on the left was going at tremendous speed and I assume skated competitively.

As the light began to fade, few birds remained in the water - these swans and duck were exceptions. On the other side of the path (and across a short ditch) there was a field full of coots.

The Sun set just as we left Hitland.

After a day walking in the Brecon Beacons and great dining in Monmouth we had a further day to enjoy in South Wales. We went to church on the Sunday morning and decided to return to Abergaveny to walk up Sugar Loaf. It would be a good day to warm down before returning to work.

Sugar Loaf is an outlier in the Black Mountains. It is not that high - 596 metres - compared with the highest point in the Black Mountains (Waun Fach at 811 m). Nevertheless what it lacks in height it has in distinctiveness. It is visible from many places such as the A40 between Raglan and Abergaveny above. Its topographic prominence (413 metres) or the drop between the Sugar Loaf summit and higher peaks is high.

We took the tiny single track road up to the National Trust car park at Grid Reference SO 268 166. We passed several cars but the lack of passing places made this difficult. One driver seemed to find this very difficult as he could not reverse straight!

The path from the car park goes up through bracken covered heath rising gently up to the Mynydd Lllanwenarth ridge from which you can see the summit. You can then take one of the paths heading first NNW then NE to the Sugar Loaf summit. Alternatively you can take a more direct line going into the Den Fach valley and up the other side.

We had a great view North and West over the Black Mountains. The cloudbase was down to at most 700 metres so the summits of the Brecon Beacons were not visible.

We took a different way down to the car park. It was a leisurely two hour walk and sadly after that we had to head off home.

Sugar Loaf is a P200 Prominent Peak.

This is part 2 of our 1 November walk, part 1 is here

The descent to the col between Cribyn and Pen y Fan was uneventful although the visibility was getting worse. At the col there was little wind and a few people had stopped for lunch. The ascent up again to Pen y Fan was icy along the path. However I was amazed to see two young guys in Army uniform literally jogging down the other way.

We reached the top of Pen y Fan and the visibility was very poor - perhaps down to 15 metres. The summit is quite flat although I knew that from pictures I had seen before the walk. However one problem was that it was hard to work out where the path was to the Cefn Cwm Llwch path. We decided to stick to our original plan which was to carry on to Corn Du.

© Copyright Phil Jolliff and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The picture above downloaded from the Geograph website shows what Pen y Fan would look like without cloud.

We plodded on towards Corn Du following the footprints and checking our bearing by compass. There were quite a lot of people who were on the summit ridge.

© Copyright Phil Jolliff and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

As can be seen by this photo in better conditions, the path to Corn Du is very straightforward. Given the visibility we decided not to take the steep path down but headed SW on the Storey Arms path before taking a dog's leg north towards the Obelisk. Following the edge of Craig Cwm Llwch.

At around a height of 700 metres we came out below the clouds and had a view down to Llyn Cwm Llwch. There was a gale force wind blowing over the edge; though thankfully it was blowing away from the edge. A detail I failed to notice when taking this photo is the moraine behind the tarn. The moraine is the set of uneven ridges.

We then descended into the valley below Pen Milan. It was actually a relief to get out of the wind although the summit ridge had been exciting. There was the muddy path down towards the nearest road - ironically although Mrs O and I had managed to avoid slipping in the snow and ice we both slithered onto our backs on muddy slopes.

We had about 2 km to follow anlong the road back to the National Trust car park. We took 5 hours and 45 minutes in total with just a 10 minute coffee break atop Pen y Fan. Under better conditions we would have moved faster and probably spent more time resting on the summit ridge but perhaps would have taken the same amount of time in total.

Pen y Fan is a P500 Prominent Peak

After an overnight stay in Monmouth and fortified by a Prego breakfast, we drove to Brecon and parked at the National Trust car park below Pen y Fan. We had not previously walked in the Brecon Beacons and we wanted to walk there as it is our closest mountain range. The plan was to start with Cribyn then move on along the ridge to Pen y Fan and possibly Corn Du. This posting is the first of two on the walk.

We set out from the car park actually descending then heading east before picking up a road and path towards Cribyn. On one of the roads Mrs O disturbed a buzzard on the road and it flew off over the woods.

The Met Office mountain forecast warned of strong winds and sub zero temperatures on the summits. However in the walk from the car park across to Bailea the conditions looked pretty tame. Snow was down to about 500 metres and the cloudbase seemed to be around 600 metres.

We went up the path that follows the Bryn Teg ridge and came up to the snowline. On the way we disturbed a bird that was reminiscent of a curlew but definitiely had a straight beak; we assume it was a woodcock or snipe. It did not seem that cold and the snow was initially soft. We came up into the cloud and initially there was 50-100 m visibility. There was presumably a stone path but it was hard to see with the snow. The main path looked icy so a lot of people had gone into the snow on either side. However you must be careful as there is a substantial drop to the right. Some walkers were really slowing down.

Closer to the summit we were exposed to a very strong NE wind. This made you feel substantially colder. There were also amazing formations in the snow which had been shaped by the wind. Occasionally the crystals would break off in the wind.

By the time we reached the summit we were getting the full force of the wind. With a significantly increased wind chill we did not feel like hanging around so followed the path towards Pen y Fan. Some walkers raced down through the soft snow though they kept very well clear of the north facing edge.

  © Copyright Nigel Davies and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

After returning I looked for photos of Cribyn on the Geograph website that had something approximating to the conditions we had on 1st November. The above photo shows the route we took to the summit on the left then the onward path towards Pen y Fan on the right. It is also interesting to see the substantial drop!

Click here for part 2 of the walk.

I watch very little TV and am not a fan of quiz shows. I went into the living room last week when 'Who wants to be a millionaire' was running. The question was "what is a Throstle"? I am aware of less well known words for some UK birds e.g. 'windhover' for kestrel but had never heard the word throsle before.

However it sounds very much like the modern German Drossel which is the word for song thrush. Since many older English and modern German words share a common root I assumed that was what the throstle was.

The answer proved to be correct!

The point at the western end of the Peniche peninsular is Cabo Carvoeiro which is a few hundred metres away from a lighthouse. The whole peninsular - at least west of the town walls - has interesting rocks. There were some very interesting small formations near here.

 

The rocks reminded me of something from the US south west, e.g. the sort of formation that you see east of Las Vegas or in Southern Utah. However they are a mere metre high. I wonder how they got this shape given that they are at the top of a small cliff. They were interesting to walk through though sadly littered - including human excrement!

 

About 50 metres offshore was this splendid stack; Nau dos Corvos. Sometimes the waves shot up to the full height. This suggests that some waves might spray over the top of the cliff too. In the left distance you can just see Berlenga island.