For my first Beacons walk of the year (in April! – what happened to the the first quarter?) I decided in Fan Fawr, the hill “opposite” Corn Du. We’ve ascended this one by a couple of routes in the past, either directly up from the Storey Arms car park or along the ridge after going up Cerrid-gleisiad. Today though I decided to go up following the Cefn Yr Henriw ridge which rises from the southern end of the Beacons Reservoir and tracks across a short escarpment to the summit cairn.
My route to the Brecon Beacons from the Forest of Dean followed the A40 from Monmouth to Abergavenny and then up the Clydach gorge and on to the “Heads of the Valley” road to Merthyr Tydfil before turning north into the hills. Unfortunately there are extensive roadworks in the Clydach gorge area which caused some delay leaving me getting the very last space in the car park.
I headed south paralleling the road on rough grass until joined the Taff Trail going round the east edge of the woods around the Beacons Reservoir. When the trial entered the woods over a stile I carried on south along the edge of the wood until reaching the next fence where I turned sharp right to join the path going up the ridge. Form here it was just a matter of following the path as it rose steadily towards the start of the short escarpment leading to the summit.
So far I had seen no-one despite the full car parks in the valley. Presumably everyone else had gone up to Pen y Fan. However just as I reached the cairn two young women appeared with their little terrier and we swapped words before they moved on to the trig point (which i some distance away from the true summit) and I sat down for my lunch.
It was a very hot day and I was suffering a bit from not having been out on the hills for so long, so after finishing my ham rolls I decided to take the short way down and headed directly back down to the carpark.
A short walk of only just over four miles with a height gain of less than 1000ft, but it afforded me nearly three hours of peace and comtemplation.