Classic Beacons

Wed 15 June 2022

Another day trip to the Beacons; weather looked good, so why not? An early rise to depart for Wales just after 6:30. I arrived at the Taf Fechan Forestry Commission car park at about 9:00, a slightly longer journey than expected due to hold ups at road works around Merthyr Tydfil. 

So the plan was Corn Du, Pen y Fan, Cribyn and Fan y Big which I have done twice (three times?) before. Decided to mix things up a bit and do the route in reverse. All starts as usual; one kilometre on the metalled road to the filter house below the Neuadd Reservoir (is it a reservoir? I’ve never seen any water in it). Then bear right for 200m by the Nant y Gloesydd and left onto the byway that heads north over Tor Glas, gently rising to Bwlch ar y Fan. In theory, I could have diverted off this path and headed directly up to the first objective Fan y Big, but as this would have involved trudging across pathless grassy terrain, decided to keep it simple and go up to the bwlch and follow the well worn path to the summit.

The summit was deserted; in fact, I had the whole mountain to myself with just the sound of the birds and distant sheep. Retracing my steps back to the bwlch, I then ascended along Craig Cwm Cynwyn to Cribyn. The first other walkers of the day were on this summit, having walked there from Pen y Fan, doing the route in the usual direction. I moved a short distance away from the summit and sat down to eat my lunch, admiring the view of Pen y Fan.

After a leisurely lunch the route continued westwards down to the bwlch and then along Craig Cwm Sere to Pen y Fan. The summit was heaving with people as usual. I lingered here a while to take some photographs before pressing on to Corn Du (another busy summit). 

Descending from Corn Du, I passed the busy path leading down to the Storey Arms, and leaving the crowds behind me, continued over Craig Gwaun Taf (stopping at the summit of course) and the long ridge heading south-east beside Cwm Taf Fechan (not sure if this is the official name).

There are a couple of options to get off this ridge, either drop down from the cairns after Graig Fan Ddu, or continue on a bit further towards Twyn Mwyalchod. I decided on the latter and in fact went 150m further than the the track to visit the trig pillar on Twyn Mwyalchod. I remember visiting this the first time I did this route (in 2002). It was well worth a visit again as the trig pillar has become a memorial for fallen soldiers in recent conflicts.

Back-tracking to the descending path, it was now all downhill (quite steeply at first) to the lower Neuadd reservoir and the metalled road back to the forest car park and the drive home.

More photos here

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Fan y Big	719		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Cribyn	795		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Pen y Fan	886		Hewitt, Marilyn, Nuttall
	Corn Du	873		Sub-Hewitt, Nuttall
	Craig Gwaun Taf	824		Nuttall
	Twyn Mwyalchod	642		-