Pen y Fan is the highest point in South Wales and a mecca for its denizens, with two million people living within an hour’s drive of the national park and seemingly born with the innate desire to stand on its top. The mountain also attracts walkers from far and wide, the National Trust now estimating that half a million people attempt to climb the mountain every year, visitor numbers having doubled in the last five years. The summit may be…
Y Mynydd Du is a landscape to inspire folklore, legends and myths. There is the tragic tale of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach and temperature inversions forming swirling valley mists are locally purported to be dragon’s breath. You may take this frivolous lore with a pinch of fairy dust, but you will nonetheless be arrested by an undeniably magical atmosphere amidst the sculpted skyline, whose rugged apron plunges precipitously into glacial cirques. Glossing over the fact that a…
Within sight of the bustling caterpillar assault of the masses on Pen-y-Fan, the serenity of Craig Cerrig Gleisiad is emphatic. Aptly described as an ‘atmospheric amphitheatre’, this National Nature Reserve is a delectable discovery in the heart of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Here, trees, shrubs, rare arctic-alpine plants, wildflowers and peregrine falcons have colonised the vertiginous slopes creating an extraordinary environment. It’s a fine little hill to climb too and despite the compact proportions resulting in a sub 70…