First Mountain Hike

Having spent many years mountain biking all over england and wales, I have always wondered how walking mountains could be half as exciting. So with a small selection of hill walks under my belt I decided to drag my Girlfriend and 2 other friends up Pen Y Fan. A late start saw us arrive at the Cwmgwdi car park just after lunch. I elected for the more interesting but extremely steep footpath route east out of the car park. The next few miles proved relatively simple, we made good time following the footpath until it joined the trackway at about 650m alt. From here on things got a bit more serious. The wind started to pick up, once we had made it up on to Cefn Cwm Llwch we were exposed to the full force of the wind. The winds were strong to gale force gusting to approximately 45mph. We stopped for a late luch at 750m. Hiding from the wind on the east side of the ridge. A few hot chocolates and a short scramble later we reached the top. Descending to the east along with the cloud we elected to avoid Cribyn Craig, and take the path to the north around the edge descending down Bryn Teg. The walk talk us 3.5 hours in total.