Fan y Big

Another icy cold late December morning.  

Plans were laid to drive further up into the Brecon Beacons near Merthyr Tydfil, park the car at the foot of the peaks, and hike the "horseshoe"- a trip up a mountain and across the ridge lines of the next 3 or 4 peaks before heading back to the carpark, a trip of 14-17 miles, 

First, we had the young bulls to contend with.  They scrambled and fought and pushed each other all over the trail, pausing to catch their breaths, smoke rising from their faces.

The day started clear, but as we started the incredibly steep climb up Fan y Big, our first obstacle, and the clouds set in.

Once the trail evened out for the ridge walk,  I longed for the steep staircase again as I was unhappily ice skating on the trail.  I'm not exactly the most nimble of hikers, and the entire trail was nothing but a glare of ice.

Then the wind picked up.  The fact that we were walking on an icy cliff-side trail was comforting to me since I couldn't see the sheer drop into the abyss.

I had a full-on scarf covering everything but my eyes, hat and hood and layers of heavy woolens and a wind-proof jacket and mittens and I was not exactly cold, but not comfortable at all in that wind.  I kept hiking on the moorland instead of the trail- the going was slower, but less icy.

It cleared enough for me to see that we were quite near the edge of the world.

Coming down Fan y Big, we got low enough for visibility to happen again.

In front of us, the peaks of Cribyn, Pen y fen and Corn Du.  We had already done the majority of the climbing, so going up the next few peaks would be relatively easy.

We hit the crossroads and I just decided that I wasn't having fun.  I'm not a complainer at all, but the ice and wind and lack of views meant I just wasn't enjoying myself the way I usually do on these hikes.

It was a hard choice- turning our backs on three big peaks in walking distance?  argh!- but I decided that I had enough.  Walking head-on into the wind was just exhausting, and when we stopped in between peaks, I realized how shaky tired and cold I was.

We headed back down the valley to the car park, mercifully tucked away from the wind.

I was told that Corn Du was quite a scramble to get up, and the original plan would have been to walk back along that ridge line.

Once we hit the car park, we had a tiny bit of daylight left.  After wolfing down our sandwiches in the car (it was cold enough so that getting a sandwich up to my face on the trail seemed impossible)  we tried to do another walk since we had only done 8 miles for the day, but after a couple hundred yards I headed back to the warmth of the car.

The area was really stunning.  Summertime here is a new to-do for me.    

Brecon Beacons Waterfalls

I went on the most magically enchanted walk in the Brecon Beacons. 

Seriously!  In the car park, a wee robin hopped into the car, inspected the clutch and stick shift, then hopped around the car a bit more before realizing that the rental car had been recently hoovered and not yet filled with crumbs.  A bitter disappointment we were, I'm sure.

We chose a long walk on a cold day- 10 miles on frosty and icy trails.  The Brecon Beacons is a National Park in south Wales with a spine of undulating hills and steep, rounded summits, the highest peaks in the south of Britain.

There were caves to explore, and miles of trails.  The 100 mile Beacon Way was my original plan for Wales on this week, but winter walking in remote parts of Wales and pushing for that kind of distance seemed a little dicey.  Rather than get myself into trouble and strife, the whole concept of day hikes from a seaside cottage seemed much more pleasant this time of year.

This day really felt like winter.

A couple miles in, the waterfalls started flowing, and didn't stop all day.  The terrain was rocky and filled with steep hills and cliffs, and plenty of rivers to cross.

This was the most notable of waterfalls, Sgwd yr Eira (don't ask, it's Welsh)  as the trail goes right behind it.

That was pretty ballsy for winter.  It was cold and slippery, but wow.  A trail behind a waterfall.

I got soaked and did my best to keep the camera safe.

There was a footbridge that ran further upstream from the falls, but what fun would that be?

Every half mile or so, another waterfall would start roaring in our ears.  Tall, skinny ones, low long flows, huge powerful torrents.  Multiple tiered ones.

After a terrifying scramble up an icy cliff, the rest of the day was pretty much a cakewalk.

The fast-disappearing sun lit the forest and moors with moody highlights.

After an exhausting morning, the afternoon was fairly flat, but muddy where the sun hit and icy where it didn't.  We climbed up onto moorland and got a beautiful view of Pen y Fan and the high peaks of the park.

The forest was just enchanted here- cold mist coming off the falls and shrouding the countryside, with rivers your constant babbling companion.  It felt really special- miles for nowhere, remote, secret.

Finally, the last falls, a diversion just off the main trail and secluded in an amphitheater in the forest: Sgwd Gwladus.  It was dusk by now, and we walked the last slippery mile to the pub to warm up with soup and a pint before the drive back to Gower and the much balmier sea-level air.

The "Waterfall Walk" was fairly well waymaked as part of a recognized trail, but a map was necessary to make the long loop as most of the people on the trail tended to walk to the closest waterfall relative to a car park and turn back.  I invested in a few Pathfinder Guides for this trip with pre-planned walks and OS maps and found them immensely useful to plan walks and connect different trails.