Fiona Barltrop enjoys farreaching views from high ridges
IT’S A FEW decades now since I walked the Offa’s Dyke Path as a teenager. It was my second National Trail – and a most rewarding and satisfying experience it was too. A highlight of that expedition was the ridge-top stretch along the Black Mountains, a day that started in Pandy and finished 17 or so exhilarating miles later in Hay-on-Wye. Although
I’ve got to know the area better since then, it had been some while since my last visit and I was keen to be out striding those long open ridges again...
For those unfamiliar with the Brecon Beacons National Park, a few
words of explanation. The Park comprises four separate ranges, from west to east: the Black Mountain (singular), Fforest Fawr, central Beacons and Black Mountains (plural). Just to confuse matters more, there’s also a peak – really a point along a ridge – in the Black Mountains called Black Mountain and another called Black Hill! Unlike the central Beacons, where you’ll rarely have the hills to yourself, the long ridges of the Black Mountains afford plenty of space and scope for solitude.
Horseshoe-type routes are the usual thing here – it’s not difficult to devise ridge/ valley combinations. The Vale of Ewyas is particularly lovely, and combining a stretch of the Offa’s Dyke Path, which runs along the national border to the east, with a length of ridge on the other side and a section of the northern escarpment to link the two at one end, makes for a splendid day. I’d done the walk once before on a very cold March day starting from Rhos Fach Common at the foot of the northern escarpment. It had proved an attractive approach, so on this warm summer’s day I decided to give it another go.
The gentle warm-up along a pleasant grassy track, with a cuckoo calling from the nearby wood, was soon followed by a steep climb up above Cwm Cwnstab to the top of the escarpment. Then it was northeast along the escarpment edge to Twmpa (alternatively known as Lord Hereford’s Knob), with just the ubiquitous mountain ponies and their foals for company. A descent to Gospel Pass was followed by a corresponding ascent to Hay Bluff (or Pen y Beacon) – a magnificent viewpoint overlooking the Wye Valley and Hereford plains.
From here I strode southwards along the well-surfaced route, soon joining the Offa’s Dyke Path, turning off after a few miles to descend to the Vale of Ewyas. After the bare moorland ridges, the beautiful vale with its lush green pastures was a pleasing contrast. At Capel-y-Ffin I had a look in the little church with its lopsided bellcote, then continued up the lane to the Grange Trekking Centre from where a bridleway leads up to the ridge on the west side of the valley. A few more miles of high-level walking brought me back to the trig point on Pen Rhos Dirion, which I’d passed earlier, and from here I retraced my initial outward steps in the fading light. A fine day’s walk, in both senses.