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I started from the car park at Blaen y Glyn Uchaf, and made a wrong turn from the start, heading up the forestry track and then a path leading off that. I got some way up the valley before having a good look at the map and realising that I wanted to be on the top of the Craig y Fan Ddu ridge, not the bottom of it. So I headed back, contouring around the hill until I found the ascent path.
- Wrong way
After a steep climb up a good path, a long flat ridge leads up to the Bwlch y Ddwyallt, and then it's a short climb up to the featureless grassy summit of Waun Rydd.
- Criag y Fan Ddu ascent
- Waun Rydd summit (769m)
From here a path goes around the edge of the escarpment and up to the summit of Fan y Big - not really much of a climb.
- View to the east
- Nuttall summit of Bwlch y Ddwyallt (754m)
- Fan y Big, Cribyn and Pen y Fan
- Fan y Big summit (719m)
After Fan y Big the character of the walk changes, with a steep descent followed by a long steep climb up to the pointy summit of Cribyn.
- Cribyn and Pen y Fan
- Cribyn ascent
- Cribyn summit (795m)
And then another descent followed by a long climb up to Pen y Fan. Not surprisingly, there were quite a few people on the summit area.
- Pen y Fan
- Highest point in South Wales (886m)
- Cribyn etc from Pen y Fan
The next top, Corn Du, just misses out on Hewitt status, as there's only 28m of ascent.
- Corn Du (873m)
I then headed south along another long flat ridge before eventually finding a path heading down.
- Rhiw y Ysgyfarnog
- Reservoirs
The descent was quite steep and wet, and a bit of bog has to be crossed to get down to the Lower Neuadd Reservoir.
- Descent
- Lower Neuadd Reservoir
From here an easy walk along the Taff Trail and then the road leads back to the car park. As I came into the car park I noticed the path which I should have used for the ascent.
- Taff Trail
