20240210 Pen Y Fan

Location: Brecon Beacons, Wales

Distance: 11.6km

Route:

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=140BE-8EsubSiJUGW-Fta-tQYh4JzVCU&ehbc=2E312F&w=640&h=480]

Started the day right with a breakdown on the A40. Having pulled over into a layby around 20 minutes from trailhead for something else, I was surprised to register the smoke pouring out from under the bonnet, and the acrid smell starting to fill the vehicle. Not what you expect after getting the all clear on your MOT the day before, especially having just had to shell out several hundred quid in repairs. Someone had not screwed the oil cap back on properly and it had worked itself loose in the 60 miles from Bristol to Brecon. The outlook was not good.

Yet miraculously an hour and a half later we were back on our way. The rockstar from the AA who arrived had found the cap lodged between a dusty tube and the chassis, a piece of smudged black plastic among a heap of tangled black metal. Of every call-out he has for a lost oil cap, he's lucky if one in ten can be retrieved. Having therefore successfully avoided the 90% failure rate of a lost cap, and with a spray of brake cleaner to disperse the build up of hot oil that had been steadily coating the inside of the bonnet, we were back on track.

The walk was good. We hadn't been here since the previous February and were attempting it this time with loaded up backpacks with around 6kg apiece. My calves were in distress for the first thirty minutes but soon calmed down. Instead the main concern revealed itself to be the wind blistering us from the east. It was a clear enough day, though the very top of Pen Y Fan was in cloud for most of the afternoon.

We found the usual Gore-Texxed suspects at the top, snapping a brief photo with the cairn before retreating under their rain shells and hobbling back down the mountain, perhaps pausing for a brief Thermos break but no more. The outlier was an extended family of sharply dressed tourists. I took their photo for them and spoke briefly with the young lad brogues and a green mohair sweater. As we headed off toward Corn Du we were surprised to see them wrestling with what appeared to be a picnic blanket and a disposable barbecue, which seemed both improbable and potentially dangerous given the 40mph gusts.

Walking down to the relative shelter of the Llyn Cwm Llwch tarn we boiled water for noodles and ate the last of a pineapple upside-down cake I had made the night before. Another couple were scouting around furtively, presumably looking for somewhere appropriate to pitch a tent, and on the far side of the water a group of loutish boys scrambled down the heather toward the water, where they tossed stones and smoked a joint.

By the time we made it back to the carpark it was dark, and we walked through the twilight woods along empty roads.