Author Topic: Black mountains at Christmas - Where to stay and general advice please  (Read 2998 times)

sirgeoffrey

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 87
Hi all, this is my first post on here so please be nice to me :)

My girlfriend and I did the Ridgeway earlier in the year and we have started walking the D'Arcy Dalton Way in stages.

However, we are looking for something a bit more challenging around Christmas time. We have a week off and would like to have a go at the Black Mountains. Given the time of year we were considering a self catering cottage.

I have found some, but since I am unsure about where to start the walks from I do not know which would be the best to go for.

Any advice on where to stay and good winter routes would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Carl

rorkes drift

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 22
a good walk would be fan brycheiniog and the surrounding hills, i went up there yesterday. one of the best walks in my opinion is the north side of pen y fan. if you want more details just let me know and i will let you know where to go...........gary

sirgeoffrey

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 87
Thanks Gary

I had looked at Pen y Fan, but fan brycheiniog looks good as well.

Any recommendations on where to start walks for these two (is there somewhere safe to park a car for instance) and places to stay in the area would be much appreciated.

Regards

Carl

rorkes drift

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 22
hi carl,
           if you come into brecon town from the west after about 1 mile you come to a pub the drovers arms, turn right opposite the pub you go under the dual carrigewaythe road narrows follow the signs for the old army training campyou will come to a car park called cwm gwdi ( you cant go no further and your car is safe there ). climb the gate and head up the path about 11- 0- clock.it starts to climb there is only one path. after a while crybin will come into sight straight ahead, keep on goingthis will lead to the top of pen y fan. there is a short hop to the top of corn du to the right. below corn du is the lake cwm llwch.you can walk down to the leftof the lake past an obelisk of a 5 year old boy where he was was found over 100 years ago, you will end up in cwm llwch car park. the only down side of this is you have a 2 mile walk to get to your car park where you started, or you can retrace your the route you came up. i hope this helps a little of this walk i will post some photos i tokk while on this walk..... gary

walkinggirluk

  • Veteran Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 611
There is a bothy that you could stay at for free!!!!  And would easily breakup you're day up for multi days.   Backpacking around the black mountains.   


Plus if you try the nutalls book volume 1 Wales.   That has some nice routes in, but at the same time depending on you're speed of walking.    Are quite long and given the time of year when the winter nights become less lighter than summer months.   You may like something of the 10 miles area.  But here are two good 13 half-ish - 15miles  routes if you like starting  north from Crickhowell  there a small car park.   But be warned it dose fill up really early.   (we got here for 7:30am, and it was full),   the tops you take in are Pen Cerrig- calch, Pen Allt-mawr, Pen Twyn Glas, Mynydd Llysiau, Waun Fach, Pen y Gadair Fawr and Pen Twyn Mawr ascent in total is 2850 feet.  The next  we took in these lovely mountains as well Black Mountain south top, Black Mountain, Twmpa, Rhos Dirion and Chwarel y fan, ascent 2400ft, again be warned there a car park which fills up limited car parking again.....  Which is a groovy two days of the Black mountains.   The only difference is that the routes I put up are the other way around in which I did them........ Plus  if you did it the way I did, than you can see where you walked the day before if good weather, and it's amazing really is so should be awesomely fantastic at Christmas!!!   Pen Y Fan does look interesting  as will. O0

A few good links at the bottom.

http://www.go4awalk.com/home/

http://www.blackmountainholidays.co.uk/
peace and tranquillity in the countryside. clean your rubbish up after you  respect it.


clean it bin it

sirgeoffrey

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 87
Thanks walking girl. I do like the sound of staying in a Bothy, but I think we might leave the first night spent in a bothy until milder weather :-)

I shall have a look at the nuttalls book

Now all I need to do is find a self catering cottage near Brecon

walkinggirluk

  • Veteran Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 611
Hi there no problemo..........  You could try here. 


http://www.breconcottages.com/
peace and tranquillity in the countryside. clean your rubbish up after you  respect it.


clean it bin it

 

Terms of Use     Privacy Policy