Details: dirt track, long grass and some marshy ground. Gradual climb and then 2 steeper climbs to and from the summit.
Difficulty: Moderate
Dog info: there was a big field full of cows at the start which meant we detoured around and added a bit more distance on...I didn't want to take my chances with the beagles barking and winding them up. Not a big fan of cows en masse... otherwise, only the odd sheep in sight, this was pretty remote.
Facilities: Tanners Arms in Defynnog or Tafarn y Garreg in Glyntawe (4-5 miles away for each of these).
Two weekends ago my dad and I set off on a hike on a Sunday. The weather had been glorious and the forecast still looked pretty good. I told him I wanted to climb Fan Nedd as that was one of the few summits I had left to conquer in the Fforest Fawr area. You can do this mountain from a number of starting points, a lot of people park near Ystradfellte closer to the Roman road as it's a shorter climb or you can walk to some of the mountains further east, but we wanted to have a shorter drive to start it so we chose to park at in the car park near Cray Reservoir, close to where there is a turning off on the minor road to Sennybridge.
We parked up and hopped out of the car, put our boots on and set off...but as is always the case with my dad planning routes, he never accounts for any hiccups we may encounter due to the dogs. The initial part of the route was meant to be over a stile and climb up through a field full of rather angry looking cows. Now, I'm not a fan of angry looking cows at the best of times, certainly not en masse...but my beagles are a bit unpredictable with other animals...they love sheep and go crazy whenever they see one but they've never seen any cows up close, and Gracie barks endlessly, so I didn't figure that would be a recipe for success, and that certainly wasn't an experiment I wanted to try out. I was half expecting to abandon the walk but we climbed over several barbed wire fences and carried the beagles over with us and headed up a steep, grassy hill to go AROUND the cows and rejoin the [barely visible] path.
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| Plummeted into a few very deep muddy areas! |
This was one of those occasions where my dad kept informing me that there was a track shortly ahead, "just over that hill there." Surprisingly, we arrived at the track quicker than we usually do when he wheels that phrase out. The gradual climb up towards the mountains here was much easier going on the ankles with a good track underneath and there were impressive views of Cray reservoir and Fan Gyhirych ahead.
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| Fan Gyhirych from the track leading up towards it. |
We stopped for a rest at Bwlch y Duwynt and took in the views while basking in a bit of long awaited sunshine. It was pretty warm and I managed to just stay in my thin microfleece all the way around. I've learned from previous lessons on walks and had brought a tether for the dogs so I could stake them away at an appropriate distance, where they would be out of reach of snatching any pasties or other snacks we had in our packs (I'm looking at you, Dexter)!
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| Lovely views looking over towards Sennybridge. |
We had set off a bit later in the day so we decided not to walk a bit further to the trig point and to head back down towards the car, retracing the same path we'd taken on the way up.
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| Looking out over the hills with Fan Gyhirych in the background. Carl sporting the classic buff (versatile headwear)! |
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| Taking a moment to enjoy the view. |
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