The A470 main road runs more or less parallel to this, the original road to Brecon, the regional town of the Brecon Beacons. I suspect it was relatively busy in its day but perhaps a little quieter than the current road.
There may have been quite a lot of people on my walk this week but I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did.
Pen y Fan Voices
Taf Fechan
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Backwards and forwards, looking up and looking down, these photos from my walk this week up Pen y Fan with the Living Taff group, show how clearly defined the footpath is and the sort of surface it has. I understand that the laying of the path started in the 1990s as a result of the ground getting mashed up by so many people doing the climb.
Having already walked in the Brecon Beacons for a few years, I think it was about 1989 or 1990 that I first climbed these particular peaks – Corn Du and Pen y Fan. That was before they started laying the path and I remember being lucky enough to have chosen a time that allowed me to have the place almost to myself.
The last shot below shows just a fraction of the parked cars on the main route through the Beacons on the A470 near the Storey Arms Outdoor Education Centre. There are other routes to climb these mountains but my favourite walks are further west by Fan Nedd and Fan Gyhirych.
Having complained about the crowds, I should say that I also think it is wonderful that so many people from all walks of life are keen to do this walk – it can only do them good, both physically and mentally and with hard wearing paths laid to protect the ground from so many feet, it is a win win situation.
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The view looking east from Pen y Fan on my walk this week was as spectacular as it was in every other direction from this viewpoint. As can be seen from the shots below, there were plenty of people enjoying the vista from the peak of Corn Du too.
I am not a great fan of camera filters but there are definitely occasions when they can be useful – if only I had had a one with me!
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This small group of people climbing the upper slopes of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, represent the Living Taff group with whom I was walking to find the sources of the River Taff. We are almost at the point where one of the highest trickles contributing to the river surfaces.
On our way there we passed others climbing the final stage of Corn Du, the peak next to Pen y Fan and another popular outing for people to take on a sunny Sunday in South Wales.
Having got the evidence, so to speak, we climbed back down this steepest part of the climb to the footpath and continue on round between the two peaks to look for the second source of the river, the Taf Fawr.
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As I approached the first, (or smaller) source of the River Taff, Blaen Taf Fechan (correction – Taf Fechan, see comments on previous post), on my walk this week with the Living Taff group, I took yet another of my frequent stops to look at the view. Looking south from the slopes of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, I could see all the way to the Bristol Channel, Flat Holm island and beyond to Somerset in England.
England can’t be seen in the shot above which concentrates on the patterns and textures on the slopes of Craig Gwaun Taf which leads up to Corn Du, but the first of the shots below gives a pretty good wider view of the scene, even though the distant atmosphere was quite hazy. In the closer surroundings of the mountains the colours and patterns of light and shade kept changing with the passing clouds.
The Blaen Taf Fechan (below) joins the Blaen Taf Fawr (correction – Taf Fawr, see comments on previous post) at Merthyr Tydfil to become the Afon Taf or River Taff which then flows on down to Wales’ capital city, Cardiff.
These photos are devoid of humans but they were there and there was the constant murmur of voices all around us. It wasn’t disturbing or even annoying really, just present.
Pen y Fan Voices
My walk this week is from a recent sunny Sunday morning when I met up with the Living Taff group for an exploration of the two sources of the River Taff. The river runs from the Brecon Beacons down to Cardiff on the south eastern coast of Wales. It has two sources which meet at Merthyr Tydfil – one of them rises from the earth just below Pen y Fan, the highest peak of the Brecon Beacons while the other starts a little lower and on the western slopes of Corn Du.
Pen y Fan and Corn Du are popular places these days, and if the weather is good on a Sunday, the footpaths up these slopes can get very crowded. The photographs below only show a handful of the ascending crowd – it became very much busier later on!
My first photo today shows a view looking west from Corn Du with the others showing its slopes and the flat summit that walkers are heading for before continuing to Pen y Fan.
Having posted about focus and time, here is some physical photographic evidence of me “adjusting my focus” and “allowing the time” to stand back and look at the “big picture” – enjoy the view of Pen y Fan from Brecon, the highest peak in the Brecon Beacons, South Wales.
Yr Allt, Fan Nedd and Fan Gyhirych are all on a walk I have done in the Brecon Beacons frequently in the past. That past is a long time ago now though and so when I took a day up there recently with my friend Mark, it seemed even better than my memory allowed.
Walking for pleasure was the main reasoning behind the trip but photos and sounds clips taken on the day can be considered a recce for a StillWalks production day later in the Summer.
Skylark – I actually managed to get a half decent photo of one of the many Skylarks up there and some of the sights and sounds from the day can be listened to and seen below. To view more of the photos, visit Flickr. If you can’t see the sound clips, click here to go to the blog.
Shadows on Yr Allt
Pen y Fan in the distance
On the side of Fan Nedd
Old Fencing
Bog Cotton
Maen Llia standing stone