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Fan Llia from the main road
A the time of my visit in April 2019 the car park at Blaen Llia was closed due to extensive work building a new bridge across the river. I managed to park on the main road between Ystradfellte and Heol Senni at the access point to the car park, managed to get all four wheel off the road so didn’t cause any obstruction to the occasional passing vehicle.
Crossing the Afon Llia
Headed down to the river where the new road bridge for the car park is being built and took the footbridge next to it over the Afon Llia. After crossing the bridge there are a couple of styles to choose from to start the walk up the hill along the famed Beacons Way, striding either style there was no obvious path to follow, so decided to ignore both of them and headed up the farm track to the right keeping the wire fence on my left, after a little less than half a mile there is a gate through the fence which I took and headed to the rising wide ridge. There is still no path as such but it was easy going.
Style up to the ridge
The alternative farm track route
Eventually I came across a more defined path and continued all the way up the hill. A fairly substantial cairn appears but the ground further ahead clearly appears higher. The true summit is approx. 1/3 of a mile further on and marked by a flat slab set into the ground about 3-4 yards to the east of the path. Beautiful views from here to all the neighbouring hills.
View up the wide ridge
Cairn near the top
View from the cairn towards the summit
View from the top towards Pen y Fan
Summit marked by a flat slab
An easy re-tracing of the route all the way down to the styles in the corner, the path is clear for the most part, but approx. ¼ mile from the styles it just about disappears which seems surprising as its part of the Beacons Way which I imagined would be fairly well trodden so I was expecting it to be a clear and obvious path, not so it seems. I visited in mid April following a very dry spell, in less favourable conditions I imagine the bottom part of the walk to be quite boggy.
Avoiding the boggy bits, it’s back over the style, over the bridge and back to the car.
Overall an easy walk ideally suited for using up a couple of hours of a late afternoon
