1 Dec 2011

Cheese rolls in the mist

Most of my backpacking trips are short weekend trips. These normally comprise a circular route back to the car with a camp in the middle. The aim this time was to go from A to B.

I left my car in Talybont and took the early bus to Brecon. After a quick shop for some more food and a laminated map. This proved a vital purchase. I then caught the bus to Crai.


Grey morning with small patches of blue over to the east, the last I would see all day. I followed a wide bulldozed track towards Fan Gyhirych and then climbed to the top of Fan Nedd. I sheltered from the wind behind the cairn before the summit where I had my lunch.


As I dropped down the hill to the large car park at the rain started to come down hard. The rain dripped off my hood, sleeves and nose but seemed to sit happily on my glasses.

On the other side of the valley I joined the Beacons Way and immediately got misplaced as the cloud became thicker. With quite a bit of wandering about and standing in bogs I climbed the hill to Fan Llia. I followed the ridge north the wind and rain increasing all the time. A couple of times the wind knocked me over. About 3 o'clock I started to look for a sheltered spot to camp. The ground was wet and steep, I could not see the wind and rain stopping. I finally decided that, although I had brought my camping kit, I was going to head for the youth hostel.


The next morning was brighter and cold. Today's route followed the Beacons Way back to Talybont. I slowly plodded up the hill to meet a crashing wind as it came over the ridge. A beautiful bright day ideal for walking along a ridge.


The central section of the National park is the most popular and there were a lot more people out today. I climbed the three main summits (Pen y Fan, Cribyn and Fan y Big) of the ridge before heading down to Talybont reservoir. This was the brightest part of the day and I enjoyed the quiet tramp through the woods and tracks.

I was a bit disappointed to miss out on a camp but next time. In case you were wondering the are no verbs in the title of this post.

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