After the string of mediocre
county tops we’d bagged over the previous year, I wanted to make
sure we added some decent hills to our portfolio.
We were down in Chippenham for Mothering Sunday, and decided to link
it to a trip “over the border” to South Wales on the Saturday.
Our target would be the “Pen y Fan horseshoe”, linking the
peaks of Corn Du, Pen y Fan, Cribyn and the amusingly named Fan y Big.
A work colleague (Nick) had told me this was called “doing the Fan
Dance”.
We had decided to approach from the south for several reasons; partly
because from the map it seemed the most logical route for the horseshoe;
partly because it was the closest approach to Chippenham; and partly because
a quick search on the web (and of John and Ann Nuttall’s book “The
Mountains of England and Wales”) had revealed that this was the
nicest ascent route.
 According to the forecast rain wasn’t due
to arrive until 3pm; as we drove into the Brecon Beacons at about 10am
it became increasingly overcast and we hoped the forecast would prove
correct. We made a bit of a booboo when parking. The last kilometre of
road was shown on the OS Explorer map as a white “private”
road. The entrance to the road was open, but there was a gate that could
clearly be padlocked across it and signs saying private road. We decided
not to risk it, and turned round to return to a car park about 500 metres
back from whence we’d come.
On the way back to the car park we encountered a white sports car, which
had to reverse back down the narrow road to allow us into the car park.
Once we were in there they followed us in, and the driver stuck his head
out to ask why we’d come back to park here rather than continuing
further down the road. We explained the potential locked gate situation,
and he thanked us before parking a polite distance away. Jim and I quietly
said to each other that a white sports car wasn’t much of a hillbaggers
car (being prone to mud, grounding, high fuel bills and breaking down
and leaving you stuck in the middle of nowhere), but when the couple emerged
they looked far fitter than us – clad in tight-fitting (but respectably
dirty and worn) lycra trousers they looked as if they were the sort of
people who would leave us trailing in their wake. It just goes to show
that you can’t judge a driver by their car (although I reserve the
right to generalise about the arrogance and aggressiveness of BMW drivers).
Despite the sports car couple looking superfit, Jim and I were off and
walking far sooner than them. At the end of the public road a track off
to the right was apparently an old Roman road leading over the pass known
as Bwlch ar y Fan. This was the way we would be returning, but for now
we continued on down the private road (the Nuttall’s book had said
that walkers were allowed to use this route), looking in dismay at where
the hills should have been. We did initially get a brief glimpse of Fan
y Big ahead and to the right, but all too quickly it was lost in swirling
low cloud. It looked like it could be a tricky walk.
We soon saw a large building ahead of us, and were fearful that it could
be a visitor centre (with an associated large car park that we’d
missed out on). The building turned out just to be an abandoned and slightly
ramshackle barn, but – arrgh! – there were a large number
of walkers’ cars parked in the rough car park beside it. We were
now afraid that the superfit walkers from the car park would catch us
up and scrag us for having made them walk a mile further than they needed
to. We upped our pace…
 Heading out of the far end of the car park we overtook
a large group of people, once again all done up in lycra and waterproofs,
and armed with walking poles. This was serious walkers’ territory,
and Jim and I were starting to feel a little underdressed! Beyond the
car park lie a dam and the tiny Lower Neuadd Reservoir. I don’t
know if it was the grey weather, but standing on top of the dam the reservoir
looked very disappointing, especially when compared to ones I’ve
seen in similar settings in the Lake and Peak Districts. That said, the
Taf Fechan stream flowing away from the bottom of the dam was exceptionally
pretty as it tumbled its way down the valley.
Heading west off of the dam, a hillside loomed steeply above us, eventually
disappearing into the clouds above. We’d planned to take a path
ascending diagonally to the right up the hillside, but it looked very
faint, and given the murkiness we decided that the well-worn path heading
straight up the hillside would be a safer bet. We began the upward slog.
The path, running beside a stream, was boggy & ‘orrible, and
we found ourselves forced further out to the side of it, at times adopting
the ankle-wearying tactic of leaping from tussock to tussock. Behind us
the valley and reservoir soon started to disappear into the mizzle. About
halfway up the slope the path briefly levelled out as it crossed another
small stream. We stopped here to pull on waterproof coats, but decided
to leave putting on waterproof trousers until the sweat-inducing ascent
was over. The pro walkers from the sports car caught and passed us at
this point, and we apologised for our poor judgement call on the car parking
– however, they didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.
Beyond the shallow shoulder of the hill the steep ascent recommenced;
the streams here seemed to be starting to form peat goughs and the easiest
way up was to follow the pebbly beds of the streams themselves. Soon we
were clear of the bog, and into an area where the path was formed from
slippery shale-like eroded material, making the use of hands necessary
at times. Mixed in with the loose stones were a lot of green materials;
clear evidence of the presence of the copper that used to be mined round
here.
 On reaching the top the drizzle stopped, and we
were able to grab a muesli bar each whilst squatting on some handy tussocks
– unsurprisingly, it appeared to be a regular stopping place! Already
the cloud had closed in so much that there was no sign of the reservoir
below; in fact, visibility couldn’t have been much more than fifty
yards. Good views were not going to be the order of the day, but turning
northwards we continued to climb, albeit at a now almost imperceptible
rate. What seemed like an entire division of the army jogged slowly past
in the opposite direction, sporting 60lb packs and bright orange berets.
They all gave the friendly greeting of people who are actually getting
paid to go up hills in the cold and wet.
We were now walking along the edge called Graig Fan Ddu, with barren
moorland and occasional peat goughs to our left and a sheer drop off to
our right. Snow patches started to appear with increasing regularity,
and at times you could clearly see that there had been cornices projecting
from the edge – it would have been pretty dangerous to walk along
here not so long ago. Unfortunately the rain also started to pick up again,
and with it the wind. At first we were slightly sheltered behind the moor
to our left, but as the moor narrowed and led us on to the ridge of Rhiw
yr Ysgyfarnog we were hit by the full wrath of the Welsh weather. First
casualty was the OS map, which started to disintegrate – it was
swiftly tucked away and GPS waypointing took over instead. Next casualty
was us – we were rapidly soaked to the skin. We realised we should
have put on waterproof trousers when we stopped previously. As we were
now already wet we felt it was too late; also in these conditions we had
no inclination whatsoever to stop for even a moment. We continued to trudge
soggily up the ridge.
 On a better day Rhiw yr Ysgyfarnog would be stunning;
today the visibility was so poor that we could only just make out the
steep drop off to each side. What we could see was a horrendously eroded
path covering almost the entire sixty-foot wide top of the ridge. The
ridge widened out again, and soon after we reached a path junction offering
the choice of either ascending to or bypassing our first peak of the day,
Corn Du. We of course took the upwards path, but saw a large group of
walkers taking the lower one.
From what we could see (ie up to about twenty metres away) the ascent
to Corn Du was the most spectacular part of the day’s walk. The
path snaked up the hillside between and across low rock faces, and there
was a genuine sense of exposure with the (perceived, at least!) drop off
to the left – especially with the gales threatening at times to
tear us away from the hillside! This section was all to brief, and we
soon emerged onto the broad, flat, eroded top of the hill. The highest
point was marked by a flattened cairn, and with the now horrific weather
allowing us no views at all, it was a decidedly anticlimactic experience.
Despite the weather, there were probably a good dozen people on the plateau,
all bent double away from the driving wind and rain. They may well have
only been there because the poor visibility made it hard to spot the way
off the top – we certainly replied on the GPS to point us in the
right direction and away from the cliffs to the north!
We descended steeply but briefly to rejoin the “bypass” path
ahead of the large group of walkers we’d seen earlier, and almost
immediately started to climb again – this time up the highest peak
of the horseshoe, Pen y Fan. We had to weave our way through large numbers
of walkers – there even appeared to be a party of schoolchildren
up here. We privately felt that any teacher leading kids up hills in these
conditions were acting pretty negligently – if I was in their position
I would be getting the kids (some of whom were dressed in trainers and
denim jackets!) off the hill as soon as possible before one of them was
blown off the edge!
 The top of Pen y Fan was much like Corn Du –
a heavily eroded flat plateau with a collapsed cairn. This plateau seemed
rather larger, and hence was even less exciting. Despite this, it was
even more popular – there were a good thirty or forty people up
here, with about twenty of them vying to get onto the cairn. What is it
about the human psyche which, when faced with horrendous weather conditions,
wants to go and stand on the highest, most exposed point possible? Perhaps
one could use this as an argument against Darwinism – surely a species
that does this should have died out long ago?!
Even with the GPS leading the way, it took us a couple of minutes to
find our way off the summit. The path, when we found it, was a steep rocky
descent that in the perilously wet and windy conditions had us using our
hands at times. The rain had now seeped into the worst possible places
– we were quite literally wet to the nadgers! In addition, the water
had seeped through our socks and into our boots, and highlighted the treacherous
side to fabric Goretex boots. As I understand it, Goretex works using
some sort of pressure gradient – if the boots are dry inside and
wet outside, stuff (ie air for breathability) can move from the inside
to the outside, whilst water can’t flow the other way. However,
once some water seeps inside from the top of the boot, the pressure is
equalised and – hey presto! – water gushes through the fabric,
making you wonder if the boot has actually split.
With wet feet and wet nadgers our morale started to wane a little, although
we were momentarily cheered by a couple of fellas who didn’t even
have waterproof coats and looked soaked to the skin and thoroughly miserable.
We dripped our way down what was a less eroded (and I assume therefore
less popular) path than earlier, to reach the col between Pen y Fan and
the next hill on the horseshoe, Cribyn. It was here that we made our mistake.
Just before the col the path forked. The GPS showed Cribyn as being somewhere
between the two paths. The visibility was still so terrible that we couldn’t
see which way to go. What we should have done at this point was to bring
the trusty old OS map out of its hiding place; unfortunately, we instead
took a speculative guess on the right hand path. The reasons for this
were twofold. Firstly the short part of the right-hand path that we could
actually see through the rain appeared to be going uphill more than the
right-hand path. Secondly, and more importantly, we really really didn’t
want to come down off the wrong side of the horseshoe, and therefore chose
the path that would lead us closer to the car.
It wasn’t too long before we realised that our chosen path wasn’t
actually ascending at all, and we were in fact traversing around the side
of the hill. We discussed going back and taking the other path, but decided
that it would not achieve any real purpose other than to make us even
wetter (if that was possible). We’d already achieved our main aim
– to bag Pen y Fan, the county top and marilyn of the group. We
saw no point in climbing hills not on our personal ticklists when we wouldn’t
even get a good view out of it. Having missed Cribyn by accident, we decided
that we would also skip Fan y Big, and come back and do the full horseshoe
“some other, sunnier day”.
With this decision made, our spirits lifted again. We marched along under
the southern eaves of Cribyn, pausing only briefly to investigate a pool
chock full of frogspawn. It seemed astonishing to find it 650 metres up,
with patches of snow round about. Surely it couldn’t have been long
since this pool had been frozen and yet already the frogs had been busy.
It was certainly wet enough for them up here today – sheets of water
were now cascading down the flanks of Cribyn.
We eventually reached Bwlch ar y Fan on the far side of Cribyn where
we joined the heavily rutted Roman road that would take us back to the
car. It was a tediously long, if gentle descent, enlivened only by a couple
of 4x4’s struggling up this byway at a precarious forty-five degree
angle. As we neared the end, another army detachment jogged slowly past
– this is clearly a regular training area for them. Whilst the visibility
had improved as we descended, the rain had if anything intensified, and
we felt rather sorry for the soldiers.
We had considered bagging the Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil and/or South
Glamorgan county tops after our Fan Dance, but once warmed up and dried
off in the car we decided we had no intention of stepping outside again.
Despite the atrocious conditions, we both agreed that we had enjoyed the
walk intensely. We felt a certain pride in – well, just having survived
all that the Welsh weather could throw at us. The highlight was undoubtedly
the rocky clamber up on to Corn Du, but it had all been fine walking.
It was just a shame we had seen nothing of what would undoubtedly be superb
views, and we definitely wanted to come back again. Our only reservation
was that, given how busy it had been today, we feared that on a sunny
day you might actually have to queue to get into the hills.
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