Twmpa, Rhos Dirion and Chwarel y Fan

[andy63]

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South Wales is a bit too far from Manchester to make a good day trip, so I booked a room at a B&B near Abergavenny for a 2 day mission to bag some of the eastern Brecon Beacons.
Thanks to numerous road works and a closed down motorway, the drive down on the Saturday morning took 5 hours, and I arrived at the small village of Capel-y-ffin at 1 p.m.
The first objective was Twmpa, also known as Lord Hereford's Knob.I had considered climbing Darren Lwyd and following the ridge up to Twmpa. However, as I was planning to do quite a lot of ridge walking over the weekend, I opted for the valley route instead. This meant walking about a mile up a tarmac road, which becomes a track and then a path, giving an easy gradual ascent up to the ridge, and a short climb up to the summit.

Capel-y-ffin , Darren Lwyd in the background

Ascent

Lord Hereford's Knob summit, view to Rhos Dirion, Pen y Fan in the distance

The mountains end abruptly here with a line of cliffs dropping down to a flat plain to the north.A path along the edge leads up to the next top, Rhos Dirion, the highest point of the day's walk.

Rhos Dirion summit

Rhos Dirion is connected to Chwarel y Fan by a long wide grassy ridge. The ground was dry today, making it an easy walk. Chwarel y Fan has a nice rocky summit.

Ridge towards Chwarel y Fan

Chwarel y Fan

The north east side of Chwarel y Fan is very steep, so when descending it's a good idea to keep to the main path - as I discovered by following a sheep track which led to a dead end half way down a cliff So I had to go back up the hill until I found the real path, which leads safely down past The Grange riding centre and back to Capel y ffin.

Wrong way down

Right way down