Walk #93 Black Mountain, Powys

Walk 20 out of 100
Walk #93 - Black Mountain

Powys

Overall Rating - ✪✪✪✪✪

Suggested Difficulty - Challenging

My Difficulty Rating - ✪✪✪✪✪

Suggested Time - 7 hours

Actual Time Taken - 6h 30m

Distance in book - 20.6km
Map my walk Distance - 3.31km + 15.89km + ??? = oops!

Tafarn-y-Garreg pub Start/Finish

So onto walk 20, a fifth of the 100 done. This is part one of two days walking in the Brecon Beacons, South Wales. The Black Mountain (range) is in the West of the Brecon Beacons National Park and is not to be confused with the Black Mountains in the East or the Black Mountain peak near Hay-on-Wye, very confusing!

The Tafarn-y-Garreg pub was the start of the walk and also provided my camping spot for the night, would recommend.

Overall this is up there with the best walks I've done so far, stunning hillwalking and miles of ridgetop walking surrounded by beautiful scenery. I've given the walk the maximum difficulty rating because the full walk is over 20km, the paths can be indistinct at times and some of the climbs are tough. I may have had a slight technology issue with tracking my walk... At some point I must have accidentally ended the walk on the app so I now have 2 logged walks with a big gap in the middle, face palm.

So one of the reasons why the app may have stopped working is because I went off track and instead of going backwards, I decided to scramble up the steep hill before it turned into a full on cliff face! Not recommended... The picture left shows the steep hill in question once I'd finally reached the top. Try to stay on top of the ridgeline! 

The long ridge of Fan Hir 

The sheer drops to your right as you walk along the ridge are quite spectacular, but if you were to do this walk in bad weather I'd steer well clear! For a brief moment, the hill fog surrounded the highest point of the walk at Fan Brycheiniog which was A. annoying and B. potentially dangerous. I was very pleased when the fog cleared in the afternoon.

Lyn y Fan Fawr

Views gone! Fan Brycheiniog (802m)

Top of Picws Du, Fan Brycheiniog in the background (now clear!)

First sighting of Lyn y Fan Fach along the Bannau Sir Gaer ridge walk. 

Looking back at the peaks and ridgelines completed so far. 

Clear to see the impact of a hot, dry summer.

One of the satisfying parts of the walk was being able to see where you've been. Reaching the shore of Lyn y Fan Fawr was a real treat after all the hill walking and a great place to stop. The final stretch down the valley back to your starting point is still surrounded by great views.



Overall a great days walk, if you can't commit to the time or the distance there are 2 options to shorten the route so don't be put off, it's a great place to visit.  

Lyn y Fan Fawr

Thanks for reading.

Stef.

P.S. join the dots on the maps to work out the route!

Here's the link to the walk on 'Map My Walk'

Here's the link to the walk on 'Map My Walk'

And follow me on Twitter @stefanvilla1991