Each year some 4.4 million hill hunters visit the Brecon Beacons for a little bit of Welsh mountain fun. That many people can’t be wrong, can they?! Well, this year I found out.
Instead of our regular annual catchup at a pub in Bristol, three old buddies and I decided to venture further afield and take on a Welsh mountain… before naturally retiring to the pub.
The Brecon Beacons, or to give it its more correct name the Bannau Brycheiniog, was easy enough to get to, well connected by road and rail to Bristol and the Southwest where my friends were based and Shrewsbury where I was travelling from.
We are simple folk so we opted for the highest point, the marvelously named Pen Y Fan which stands at a whopping 886 metres above sea level. Although, fortunately for climbers, it is only 440 metres of ascent from the trailhead.
Of those 4.4 million souls who descend on the Bannau each year the National Trust estimates around 250,000 make it up Pen Y Fan.
It seems appropriate then that Pen Y Fan (pronounced more like Pen Er Van than Penny Fan) translates from Welsh as “the top spot”. It is the top spot in these parts anyway.
We arrived mid-morning on a blue-skied April Saturday. One of the first bright sunshiny weekend days of the year. And as we squeezed into the last remaining space in the already chockablock car park we realised we weren’t the only ones wanting a little mountain air today.
There was an array of fast food vans waiting to fuel up and hikers who’d forgotten to pack their scotch eggs and Nik Naks. All had healthy queues. The car park had a nice festival atmosphere with everyone happy to be outside in the fresh air after a long dark winter.
Most hikers were heading up what locals cheekily call “The Motorway Route” as it’s so full of traffic. To escape the crowds a little we opted for a circular route which took us up the slightly less travelled Military Route and back down the Motorway.
The Military Route is so named as apparently, back in the day, it was used as a training ground for British soldiers preparing for action in mountainous parts of the world. It’s for sure a workout.
The hike itself is strenuous for sure without being complicated. Under blue skies, there is little chance you can get yourself lost. Just pick a route, follow the well-worn path and keep on climbing.
The ascent took us less than 90 minutes which included a few stops for photos, fun-size Mars Bars and a couple of impromptu snowball fights, making use of the small snow piles left over from the colder months.
The views from the peak were genuinely stunning. On a clear day, such as the one we were blessed with, you can see as far as the Bristol Channel to the south and the Gower Peninsula to the southeast.
A victory photo at the peak plaque would’ve been nice but the queue was about 20 people deep so we opted to skip it and simply soak in the view and summit atmosphere instead.
The descent was easy enough and as we were moving against the flow of traffic, with most people trudging up the Motorway Route, we got to be those helpful guys dishing out smiles and helpful shouts of “nearly there!”
We even passed one nutter carrying a baby pushchair uphill. Randomly the baby was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was waiting at the peak for a joy ride back down to the slope!?
Piling back into our waiting car we were all buzzing with that warm feeling of achievement you get after doing something you know you will remember for a long while.
The roundtrip from car to peak and back to car had taken a little over three hours. Best of all next up was a hearty Welsh pub lunch. What a day!
So if you ask this hiker’s humble opinion, he can both affirm that Pen Y Fan is indeed a “top spot” and that the 4 million plus annual visitors to the Brecon Beacons all have their heads firmly screwed on.
