Four Black Ravens and a Diving Board into Oblivion
The summit of Fan y Big has a lot to please the weary hiker who has made it this far. At a modest 719 metres above sea level it's not the highest peak you'll ever stand on, not even by British standards. But the vast majority of people who walk in these mountains approach them from the other side, making Fan y Big a lonely outpost where only the most determined of ramblers will arrive during a circuit that may well have comprised each of the other three peaks filling this memorable vista. On bank holiday Mondays the masses will descend, sporting inappropriate footwear, dragging pushchairs and popping cans of lager as they head for the summit of Pen y Fan from the car park at the Storey Arms to the south-west. Southern Britain's highest peak gets pretty busy on an August bank holiday Monday.
It's easy to feel smug when you arrive from the north-eastern side of these mountains. If you read my previous story you might have picked up on the fact that it's hard going at first. Nobody's going to be wheeling their two year old up the opening sloping salvo in flip flops here, and there's nowhere to park anyway. No ice cream van, no cafe and no beer station either - just a remote mountain farm with a spartan but pleasing campsite that will only take a small number of adventurers at any one time. The result of all of this infrastructural austerity is that you might not see anyone else as you unattractively sweat your way up the first mile of ascent. Once you've done that the rewards are immediate, as the incline shallows to a gentle long stroll towards the summit. Just the sound of Skylarks and the pitched cry of the occasional Buzzard or Red Kite will pierce the stunning silence of the mountainside on a windless afternoon. To the south and east there is nothing to tell you that humans have ever existed apart from the rutted footpath, In a small country where almost seventy million of us live cheek by jowl the isolation brings a sense of joy and wonder that's almost without peer.
A couple of hours after staring uncertainly at that brutal and forbidding first slope you'll arrive here at the summit. If three or four other parties have made it to this place you might need to queue to take photos of yourselves hovering over the valley below on a slate ledge that resembles a diving board. It's not for the fainthearted - if you did somehow manage to fall off you'd hit the ground within a few feet but there wouldn't be much to stop you rolling ever faster down the sheer mountainside towards an unfortunate end. On this visit a young couple with a pair of Labradors greedily hogged the diving board for some minutes while we patiently waited our turn to flirt with the oblivion so far beneath our lofty perch. Four Ravens filled the silence with their noisy cronking calls. The biggest one was missing half of the feathers from what was once a diamond shaped tail, no doubt the result of some exciting nearby scrape with a bird of prey. Unsuccessfully I tried to photograph them in flight, but I hadn't dialled in my settings and before I could their cries were fading into the distance.
Meanwhile the clouds moved constantly and relentlessly across the sky, the shadows thrown by them chasing the light over the grand view ahead of us. From here you can see the summits of Corn Du, Pen y Fan and Cribyn, dark outlines in contrast to the bright green sunlit flank of the last of those names. Pixel peepers might just make out humans on each of those three mountain tops, all gazing down at the world and feeling that rush that comes from witnessing the raw beauty around them. For some it will be the first time they stood on those peaks, for others a regular haunt where they go to find open space and empty silence.
Last time I was here alone, striding happily towards those three summits before retracing my steps over the lot of them as I returned to that lonely farm beyond the foot of Fan y Big. On another day we'll head that way again, but this time we struck out to the east, to the marvellous ridge around Waun Rydd from where we could add the summit we were standing onto the magical landscape in front of us. Every time we come here we learn more of this corner of Wales that has become a family touchstone. There's plenty more of it to discover still.
Four Black Ravens and a Diving Board into Oblivion
The summit of Fan y Big has a lot to please the weary hiker who has made it this far. At a modest 719 metres above sea level it's not the highest peak you'll ever stand on, not even by British standards. But the vast majority of people who walk in these mountains approach them from the other side, making Fan y Big a lonely outpost where only the most determined of ramblers will arrive during a circuit that may well have comprised each of the other three peaks filling this memorable vista. On bank holiday Mondays the masses will descend, sporting inappropriate footwear, dragging pushchairs and popping cans of lager as they head for the summit of Pen y Fan from the car park at the Storey Arms to the south-west. Southern Britain's highest peak gets pretty busy on an August bank holiday Monday.
It's easy to feel smug when you arrive from the north-eastern side of these mountains. If you read my previous story you might have picked up on the fact that it's hard going at first. Nobody's going to be wheeling their two year old up the opening sloping salvo in flip flops here, and there's nowhere to park anyway. No ice cream van, no cafe and no beer station either - just a remote mountain farm with a spartan but pleasing campsite that will only take a small number of adventurers at any one time. The result of all of this infrastructural austerity is that you might not see anyone else as you unattractively sweat your way up the first mile of ascent. Once you've done that the rewards are immediate, as the incline shallows to a gentle long stroll towards the summit. Just the sound of Skylarks and the pitched cry of the occasional Buzzard or Red Kite will pierce the stunning silence of the mountainside on a windless afternoon. To the south and east there is nothing to tell you that humans have ever existed apart from the rutted footpath, In a small country where almost seventy million of us live cheek by jowl the isolation brings a sense of joy and wonder that's almost without peer.
A couple of hours after staring uncertainly at that brutal and forbidding first slope you'll arrive here at the summit. If three or four other parties have made it to this place you might need to queue to take photos of yourselves hovering over the valley below on a slate ledge that resembles a diving board. It's not for the fainthearted - if you did somehow manage to fall off you'd hit the ground within a few feet but there wouldn't be much to stop you rolling ever faster down the sheer mountainside towards an unfortunate end. On this visit a young couple with a pair of Labradors greedily hogged the diving board for some minutes while we patiently waited our turn to flirt with the oblivion so far beneath our lofty perch. Four Ravens filled the silence with their noisy cronking calls. The biggest one was missing half of the feathers from what was once a diamond shaped tail, no doubt the result of some exciting nearby scrape with a bird of prey. Unsuccessfully I tried to photograph them in flight, but I hadn't dialled in my settings and before I could their cries were fading into the distance.
Meanwhile the clouds moved constantly and relentlessly across the sky, the shadows thrown by them chasing the light over the grand view ahead of us. From here you can see the summits of Corn Du, Pen y Fan and Cribyn, dark outlines in contrast to the bright green sunlit flank of the last of those names. Pixel peepers might just make out humans on each of those three mountain tops, all gazing down at the world and feeling that rush that comes from witnessing the raw beauty around them. For some it will be the first time they stood on those peaks, for others a regular haunt where they go to find open space and empty silence.
Last time I was here alone, striding happily towards those three summits before retracing my steps over the lot of them as I returned to that lonely farm beyond the foot of Fan y Big. On another day we'll head that way again, but this time we struck out to the east, to the marvellous ridge around Waun Rydd from where we could add the summit we were standing onto the magical landscape in front of us. Every time we come here we learn more of this corner of Wales that has become a family touchstone. There's plenty more of it to discover still.