Last weekend with the weather forecast looking good we headed out for our first trip to the Black Mountains of 2018.
Parking at the picnic area at the saddle between Black Hill and Little Black Hill we headed up onto the narrow ridge known as Cat’s Back, as from the Herefordshire side it’s supposed to look like a cat crouched, waiting to pounce.
Looking back along the ridge
Although the ridge is quite narrow there is no scrambling and it feels safe but with lovely airy views.
The ridge started to widen and we approached a large cairn, I thought I spotted something moving.
We paused and sure enough in the stones of the cairn was a weasel or stoat, I’m not sure which, although I do know the old joke, “what’s the difference between a stoat and a weasel? A weasel is weasily identifiable, a stoat is stoatally different
”
We then played a game like whack-a-mole where instead of trying to whack the critter we were trying to snap it with our cameras as it kept popping up from different crevices in the cairn.
Here’s my effort
and my daughters somewhat better one, clearly the youthful reaction times were on her side!
We continued up to the pretty dull boggy summit of Black Hill marked by a trig point.
From there we continued along to Hay Bluff enjoying the views and some isolated patches of snow.
At Hay Bluff we found a spot off the summitt and out of the cold wind for our flasks of soup and hot drinks and sat for a while enjoying the scenery
Before we got too cold we headed up on to Offa’s Dyke which here is right on the border between England and Wales. Fortunately the path here has been laid with stone extensively as it would otherwise be very boggy. As it was it was easy walking.
One foot in each country!
This vantage point was too good to pass without more photos-looking west across the Black Mountains to the Brecon Beacons
We continued along Offa’s Dyke intending to drop back down into the Olchon Valley at the point marked “pile of stones” on the OS map. I was a bit too cocky here and turned off much too early at a wrong cairn. Entirely my fault, I hadn’t really looked at the map all day having walked this way before and with clear visibility wasn’t paying enough attention. It worked out OK though, we meandered along some sheep or pony tracks until we rejoined the correct path and continued down.
The route does have a slight sting in the tail, as you can see in the photo the saddle between the hills where the car was parked has to be climbed back up to out of the valley.
Total distance a shade under 9 miles, height gain around 500m.