Pen y Fan – Reviewing the Walk

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.

Original Brecon Road

Pen y Fan Voices

Taf Fechan

If viewing this in an email, please click the title to see more of the post, thank you.

Reaching the Source

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.

Climbing Pen y Fan

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.

If viewing this in an email, please click the title to see more of the post, thank you.

Looking South from the Beacons

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.

Brecon Beacons

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