Friday 15 March 2024
Our base for this weekend was Park Guest House B&B in Abergavenny which Vince had sorted out. It proved an ideal location for exploring Bannau Brycheiniog (as we must now call the Brecon Beacons). We had arrived in the rain late Friday afternoon. As it was a B&B we had to seek out an evening meal ourselves. We settled on the Victoria Bar just 300m along the road from our billet.
Saturday 16 March 2024
I wanted to tackle the 12 summits of the Black Mountains as I had not yet done any of these. Vince agreed even though he had climbed them all before. Nuttall suggested starting at Capel-y-ffin, but I thought the parking looked restricted so suggested starting the route at the better parking area at the Gospel Pass. It was about a 40 minute drive, the last part on a long, narrow, much pot-holed single-track road, but luckily we did not meet any vehicles coming the other way.
Just before we got to our parking spot we passed some workers ready with large bags of paving material which were being transported up to Black Mountain slung from a long cable underneath a helicopter. It was busy doing this all morning.
As we prepared to set off the sky was overcast and the temperature was a chilly 6°C, but it was not raining as yet.
Our first summit was Twmpa (aka Lord Hereford’s Knob). After an initial muddy start a good path led the way. It only took us 20 minutes to make the 140m ascent and 1.4km to the top. The summit was marked with a scattering of flat stones collected into a low pile which could hardly be described as a cairn. The cloudy, grey day meant the views were not that good, but we could clearly see our next summit of Rhos Dirion to the south-west and the path that would lead us to it.
The 2.3km to Ros Dirion was covered in 30 minutes of easy walking. This was our highest point of the day. The white paint on the trig pillar had seen better days and the stencilled red Welsh dragons on each side looked very weather beaten and worn.
We now had to lose height and descend into the Vale of Ewlas and pass through Capel-y-ffin. There were three cars parked where Nuttall recommended we start the walk, so we probably would have been ok here. The paths in the valley were particularly muddy (it had been the wettest winter on record). We followed a lane past the chapel and began to ascend back out of the valley, through fields where the going was still pretty soft. We crossed a stile back onto the access land to find a 20m section of path that was underwater. We managed to creep past along the muddy edge without getting our feet wet. The ground steepened as we ascended up to the Offa’s Dyke ridge.
The walking was easy along the ridge as most of the way was paved with flag-stones. The weather was beginning to deteriorate – rain and hill-fog. There were a multitude of cairns along the path, but we assumed Black Mountain’s summit was the rock that had been painted orange as there was nothing else that distinguished the top. No views because of the hill fog.
Next onto Hay Bluff. Although at 677m it is high enough to be classed as a Nuttall, it fails because it only has an 11m drop. The trig point was surrounded by a moat of rain water which we could not avoid stepping through in order to reach. The scenery from here is rumoured to be quite fine, but we could not see anything as the weather had closed in. The 1.5k walk south-west from here back to the Gospel Pass was pretty grim as the wind was driving the rain straight into our faces.
| Summit | Height (m) | Status | ||
| Twmpa | 680 | Hewitt, Nuttall | ||
| Rhos Dirion | 713 | Sub-Hewitt, Nuttall | ||
| Chwarel y Fan | 679 | Hewitt, Nuttall | ||
| Black Mountain South Top | 637 | Deleted Nuttall | ||
| Black Mountain | 703 | Hewitt, Marilyn, Nuttall |
We had dinner in The Victoria again.
Some more photos here.
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