The Western Black Mountains

Sunday 17 March 2024

Before setting-off we bought sandwiches from the petrol station near The Victoria.

Once at our destination parking the car proved a little tricky. The parking area was small at the side of a very narrow road. There was only room for about three cars, but two were already there when we arrived. The problem was that the remaining space was a) mostly under water and b) the road edge in front of it was broken away leaving a drop that would have grounded the car had we driven over it. I managed to reverse the car in at an angle into the space avoiding the drop. We had to unload our gear from the car before reversing in so that we did not have to stand in the water to get it.

A permissive path led us south-west through a muddy field and then along the edge of a wood to the access land. An obvious path through bracken continued for a short distance, slanting up the hill side before a lone hawthorn tree (as per Nuttall) indicated where the path turns uphill for the steep ascent to the summit of Pen Cerrig-calch. Initially a difficult slog through heather, but as we neared the top this gave way to an equally challenging area of large grey boulders. A rather sad and neglected trig pillar marked the summit. We took our banana and coffee break taken in the nearby cairn/shelter.

An easy walk of 2km on a good path beside the edge of the ridge saw us to the next summit, Pen-Allt-mawr. The trig pillar here looked even sadder than the last, having become detached from its base and standing forlornly next to the scattered rocks of the summit cairn. If there were any views they were obscured by hill fog.

We descended northward on a  clear path, stopping briefly for me to put on an extra layer as I was beginning to feel cold. The path curved around the head of Cwm Banw before the slight rise again to the flat summit of Pen Twyn Glas, marked by an insignificant flat stone with a small fist- sized rock placed on it. A good view back to the previous summit of Pen Allt-mawr, with its top still shrouded in the cloud that had spoilt our views. We descended a few metres east to shelter from the wind and eat our lunch. A couple of other walkers arrived to do the same as we donned our packs ready to continue.

A little over two kilometres of easy walking saw us at the next summit of Mynydd Llysiau, another flat, grassy top marked with a small heap of stones. Looking back the cloud base was now above our previous summits.

A further 15 minutes and we were down at the col between Mynydd Llysiau and Waun Fach. We thought at this point that we probably did not have enough time to complete the other three summits so we decided to descend on the broad, grassy bridle track back down into the valley. The track soon deteriorated into a muddy morass in places, so it became a long slog of about 7k back to the car.

A surprise awaited us back at the car – some numpty had parked almost in front of us making it very difficult to extract my car from the awkward spot we had had to park it in. 

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Pen Cerrig-calch	701		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Pen Allt-mawr	719		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Pen Twyn Glas	646		Sub-Hewitt, Nuttall
	Mynydd Llysiau	663		Hewitt, Nuttall

Dinner was at The Greyhound Vaults as The Victoria was not serving food on a Sunday evening.

More photos here