Walkhighlands

After watching weather forcasts for the weekend decided on a late sunday start as forcast gave a decent window from sunday afternoon until monday night. http://www.netweather.tv website was bang on, had light showers for first 3 hours but from 4pm on sunday cloud started to lift and from 5pm had clear skys throughout.
Day one
Started about 12.30 Sunday 3/10/2010 at Capel-Y-ffin follow signs for "Grange Trekking", turn left up to Grange then right to end of lane then turn left up the hillside, footpaths more like stream beds after mornings torrential rain but hoping forcast was right, thought go for it anyway. Follow path diagnally left up hill to top of ridge by a large Cairn 1.9 km. Should now have views down to Grwyne Fawr Reservoir and up to Pen y Gadair Fawr. At this point you could head SE to the top of Chwaral y Fan @ 679 metres, but as I knew i was limited for daylight I continued over ridge south towards Mynydd Due Forest, Enter forest via small gate the follow forest paths generally down hill to join small road at gr so251 286. Go left down road for a few metres to find footbridge over Grwyne Fawr 1.9km.
Cross bridge and turn right along forest track for a few metres then take small path steeply uphill through forest, Keep heading up through forest, crossing two forest tracks and when you reach the top forest track(woodland felled on far side of track) turn right walk along track to gate onto hillside. Bear west up hill for about 0.45 km to top of Pen y Gadair Fawr @ 800 metres 2.4 km. Light rain now stopped, weather now just cloud comming and going. From here head NW for 1.8 km to the top of Waun Fach @ 813 metres 1.9km.
Follow ridge generally NW for about 3.2 km, cloud lifted well above tops by now. Then head NE for 1.2 km to trig point @ 713 metres, continue along ridge for 1.6 km to gr so 220 345 then turn SE down valley for 1.6 km on eastern side of Nant Bwch to great Bivi Site.
Day two
After a wonderful clear night woke up to blue skys headed back up valley then turned NE to top of the Twmpa @ 690 metres 2.1km.
Then head east down a well made path to Gospel Pass 1.2 km, then NE up to trigpoint on Hay Bluff 1.8km. Starting SE follow Offas Dyke path for 5.5km passing over the Black Mountain @703 metres, continue passing over the 637 metre point at gr so 267 322 just past this point is another set of slabs with a small cairn by the end of it with a small path going right (IGNORE THIS PATH) continue for 300 metres where footpath from Olchan Valley to Capel-Y-Ffin crosses Offas Dyke path and turn right onto this path. Follow this path downhill (path very muddy, steep and slippy in places) until you reach a farm track, just to the left you will see the footpath continues down to a footbridge over the Afon Honddu, once over bridge bear right to style and onto the road, once on the road turn right to head back to Capel-Y-Ffin.

All in all a great walk with a perfect bivi spot.

Did you know theres a bothy at grid 227311, its the smallest bothy in the world ( dont take that as gospel) but its small 3 people inside & its a squeeze,you sleep up stairs.

Isn't that first pic the famous and beautiful Elan Dam? Like the second pic - looks like you're worshipping something - calling the Gods down or something!

Morning mtn coward, that dam you are looking at is Grwyne fawr reservoir i thinks!! that were the little bothy hangs out .

Actually, thinking about it, it couldn't have been the Elan Dam so far south as it's in Mid Wales isn't it - duhhh!

Hi folks, there are 7 dams in the elan valley area, One was never comleted and the first one built was destroyed by Barnes Wallis in 1942.

tango wrote:Did you know theres a bothy at grid 227311, its the smallest bothy in the world ( dont take that as gospel) but its small 3 people inside & its a squeeze,you sleep up stairs.

Is Bothy just north of Reservoir ?

hi it is grwyne fawr dam im responsible for it and live in the bungalow just before the dam if anybody fancies fishing come to the bungalow for permits half price for walkhighlands members

yes the bothy is just north of the reservoir on the right side

many thanks superphil

Remember doing Waun Fach ages ago from the other side, via Y Grib. Nice walk but got misty up the top and quite a feat to get to the trig point (if you can call a lump of upturned concrete a trig point) through the black bog surrounding it.

This route is much longer than I did.

Ah the lump of concrete in a bog, i went over there last week and was pleased to find it in the fog (only the top was foggy) and then descend to the bothy for somewhere sheltered to heat up some food. It was in the middle of a long day from Llangors lake to Llanthony (more details on my blog).

Yep thats just what i remember, pretty uninspiring top.

Lejogplodder wrote:Ah the lump of concrete in a bog, i went over there last week and was pleased to find it in the fog (only the top was foggy) and then descend to the bothy for somewhere sheltered to heat up some food. It was in the middle of a long day from Llangors lake to Llanthony (more details on my blog).