Great Outdoors

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.