Hard to believe it’s almost six months since the last Gentian trip to South Wales (the Annual Dinner meet in November)! This time we were based further southwest, at the well-appointed Clyngwyn Bunkhouse near Ystradfellte. With quite a few other long weekends coming up, I decided not to take the Friday off work this time, and didn’t regret that decision when Friday morning was a very wet one in Derby! Nonetheless, I was able to get away from work reasonably promptly, just before 4pm, and it was a very welcome surprise that I didn’t encounter any major delays on my journey down the M42 and M5 at rush hour!

I paused for dinner at Ross-on-Wye and arrived at the bunkhouse soon after 7:30. Most of the others had already arrived – some having walked on Pen y Fan – but a few were out at the pub for dinner. As usual, the evening passed quickly with good conversation over a couple of glasses of wine. It was good to meet a couple of enthusiastic new members – Claire and Julia – on their first meet.

With the forecast showing dry weather until mid afternoon, my proposed Saturday walk taking in three of the nearby central-Beacons hills proved pretty popular, with eight others signing up. We started a few miles up the lane at Plas-y-gors, and walked up easy grassy slopes to our first objective, Fan Llia, and its slightly lower neighbour, Fan Dringarth. A post-glacial landslip on the east side of the ridge gave a nice foreground for photos looking towards Pen y Fan and down to Ystradfellte Reservoir.

Our descent onto the spur of Bryn Melyn was pathless but pretty easy ground, picking up sheep trods further down. Once we’d crossed the lane, it was a fairly steep ascent back up to Fan Nedd via its northeast ridge, topped with a large cairn where we paused for a snack.

After a short detour to the summit, with its dragon-emblazoned trig point, we continued down to Bwlch y Duwynt to join the large track onto Fan Gyhirych. Further up, we struck off to the right to keep on the crest of the northern cwm, where we stopped for lunch with great views looking back past the morning’s hills towards Pen y Fan.

After visiting the trig point, we headed south on the surprisingly large and well-maintained gravel track, passing a couple of small quarries before climbing back up slightly and over the fence onto Carreg Cadno. This area has many limestone outcrops on the hilltop, and a huge network of caves beneath! The Beacons Way provided easy walking from there down to the River Nedd, where we joined the Sarn Helen Roman Road for the final stretch back to the cars. A few spots of rain fell now and then over the final hour or so, but never justified waterproofs.

We returned to the bunkhouse and had a couple of hours to shower and relax over a few cups of tea before the club AGM at 6pm. This was an uncontroversial meeting, all done in less than half an hour, but did include election of a new Chair and Meet Booking Secretary. Dinner followed, with Greek salad to start, then a very tasty beef bourguignon for the meat-eaters, followed by pashka prepared by Wendy – apparently a traditional Easter dessert in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Sunday’s mountain forecast was a bit more showery, but we rose to find blue skies and the regular forecast showing it should stay dry until lunchtime. I thought that would be enough to tempt a few others to join my planned walk around the Glyn Tarell skyline over Fan Fawr. I was mistaken though, and ended up doing the walk solo while most others just did a short stroll around the classic waterfalls walk. The lack of enthusiasm among hillwalkers for making the most of all opportunities to walk up hills, having driven many hours from home to do so for the weekend, continues to bemuse me, even if I’ve learned not to be surprised by it! The phenomenon is certainly not unique to the Gentian Club!

Once all the cleaning, tidying and packing was done after breakfast, I said my goodbyes and set off for Libanus, a drive of about 30 minutes. I started off by ascending the bridleway onto the ridge of Mynydd Illtud to pick up the Sarn Helen Roman Road again, and follow it southwest for a bit, with views of my route for the day. Pen y Fan was in-and-out of cloud, which continued all day, but everything else stayed clear. Once across the main road, I ascended the attractive northeast ridge of Fan Frynych, which has a good path all the way. The summit was a good viewpoint for the previous day’s three hills, with the Black Mountain beyond to the right.

From there, I headed south, skirting around the crest of the impressive Craig Cerrig-gleisiad before following the broad grassy ridge towards Fan Fawr. A steep final ascent of 100m brought me directly to the summit, with good views over the eastern crags into Cwm Tae with its reservoirs.

Corn Du and Pen y Fan did not look far away, the other side of Storey Arms, and the grassy descent to the outdoor centre did not take long. Then it was an easy climb back up to the minor summit of Y Gyrn, following a grassy path to the left of the main path to Pen y Fan and thus avoiding all the descending crowds! I ate my lunch by the cairn in the sunshine, wondering whether I might add the higher hills to my route for the afternoon. Then I looked north and saw grey clouds and rain approaching and resolved to stick with my original plan of descending directly via Pen Milan!

It did rain fairly heavily for 15 minutes as I made my way northeast from Y Gyrn to the main ridge, but then stayed mostly dry again for the remainder of the walk, with sunny spells returning to give some excellent views up Cwm Llwch to Pen y Fan. A short section on lanes brought me back to Libanus at around 2:30pm, and clear roads (except for lots of heavy showers) got me back home by 5:30 without delay or incident.

Another very enjoyable weekend away, not really marred by the lack of company on Day Two. I definitely felt like it had been the right choice to head back into the hills rather than joining in with the waterfall walk! Looking forward to the next meet, in mid-Wales in June.

Maps of my routes are available here:
– Fan Llia to Fan Gyhirych
– Fan Fawr
More photographs can be found on Google Photos here.

This weekend was the Annual Dinner meet of the Gentian Mountaineering and Hill Walking Club, the first such occasion since I joined the club, held this year in the Brecon Beacons. Our accommodation was the well-equipped and comfortable Star Bunkhouse in Bwlch. I got a prompt finish from work, paused briefly at home to pack the car, and had a surprisingly good journey down the M42 and M5, with no more than half an hour of delays despite travelling in the height of the Friday rush hour. After stopping for dinner at Strensham services, it was only another hour or so to go, and I arrived at around 7:30pm. A few had gone to the pub across the road but most of us spent the evening chatting over drinks in the bunkhouse. It was good to meet a few more of the regular members whose paths I hadn’t crossed on other trips this year.

Saturday began with the standard group breakfast of porridge, toast and cereal. The forecast was for quite a wet and windy day. I offered to lead a walk starting a few miles down the road in Crickhowell, up onto the hills to the north, and six of the group elected to join me. We ascended via the Beacons Way up the unexpectedly pretty Cwm Cumbeth, with lovely autumn colours and an attractive stream cascading down. Once above the intake wall at around 400m, we traversed around to the hill fort at Table Mountain, known in Welsh as Crug Hywel – presumably the town below was named after the fort. The defensive earthworks are still clearly visible, and the hill gave good views both ways along the Usk valley as well as towards the Sugar Loaf and Crug Mawr.

We continued north up the ridge to Pen Cerrig-calch, which I had previously climbed from the east, and entered the cloud at around 500m. The paths were clear though, so navigation was straightforward up to the trig point, and onward along the ridge to Pen Allt-mawr, where the trig point is lying on its side. Some showers blew through, but the rain was never very intense and the wind was not severe either. We had lunch in the shelter of the cairn before heading back south along the ridge, but this time keeping to the paths on the west side. After a few hundred metres, we passed Mick’s group going the other way. Soon we were on the rocky outcrops of Pen Gloch-y-pibwr, from where we had fleeting views down into the valley as the clouds parted.

We descended by the southwest ridge, mostly pathless, and initially over very slippery limestone, but later on short grass and heather. On the crags at Bryniog, we dropped back out of the mist and had views into the valley again. The rest of the descent to the Beacons Way was rougher, but we found a relatively painless route through the bracken. The path then traversed across Cwm-gu and over the next spur to drop back into Crickhowell. It had been a surprisingly pleasant day, considering the poor forecast, and a good scenic walk.
Route map: https://www.plotaroute.com/route/2080105

We were back at the bunkhouse soon after 3pm, leaving plenty of time to shower, rehydrate with a few cups of tea, and then get changed into smarter clothes for dinner. We gathered in the hut dining room for prosecco from 5pm, and were then picked up by our coach at 6pm to head back into Crickhowell, where our dinner venue was the Bear Hotel, an attractive 18th century coaching inn. The hotel served a tasty meal, which we enjoyed over good conversation. Afterwards, our special guest Alan Bowring, a geologist at the Brecon Beacons National Park and Geopark, gave us a very interesting and engaging presentation on the geological history of the region – a complex mixture of different sedimentary rocks laid down as what is now the Beacons drifted from 60 degrees south of the equator to where it now lies, 52 degrees north! The coach came to return us to Bwlch at 11pm and, like most others, I didn’t hang around long before getting to bed.

Sunday started dry, and the forecast showed heavy showers. Feeling optimistic, I planned a longer walk from Talybont Reservoir up onto Allt Lwyd then around the horseshoe via Pant y Creigiau. Simon and Sheena opted to join me again. The first rain arrived just as were finishing putting our boots on, but we set off undaunted. A reasonable, grassy path led us up to the southwest onto the ridge of Allt Lwyd – a route I had not taken before – with good views initially back down to the lake and Tor y Foel. I was surprised to find that, higher up, the path was in the process of being surfaced with shale and sandstone. As the rain intensified, we soon entered the mist, but the many bags of helicopter-dropped materials marked the way!

Beyond the summit, we continued along the well-defined ridge northwest, wishing that the views either side were visible to us. By the time we’d reached the large cairn at the eastern end of Waun Rydd, we were pretty damp and, 90 minutes in, the rain was showing no sign of abating, so we made the decision to take the shorter, direct route down via Twyn Du. Typically, half an hour later it was brightening up a lot, and the cloud had cleared the tops, and we wished we had pushed on a little longer into the rain! Anyway, we got some good views over the Usk valley towards the Black Mountains, and again across the reservoir to Tor y Foel, and the autumn colours were beautiful.
Route map: https://www.plotaroute.com/route/2080784

We had our lunch in the dry on a picnic table near the reservoir shore, then changed out of our damp waterproofs and headed home. My drive went smoothly, taking 2h40 without needing a break. Overall, despite the persistently damp and grey weather, a very enjoyable weekend, sharing good company both on the hill and at the dinner. A fitting end to my first year in the Gentian club. There was talk of perhaps making the 50th Anniversary Dinner (in 2024) a black tie event, which would be more akin to the CUHWC Annual Dinners of student days! Let’s see what the future brings.

My full photo album is available here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/hQwgcnPi5uH9A7eS7