So, a big thank you to Undy & Redwick Runners for being a great bunch, and happy for me and Charlotte to join in from our little walking group, thanks guys.
Getting There: Directions
- If you’re heading from Cardiff way, then join the A470 and head towards Merthyr Tydfil, but you want actually go through the town. You simply stay on the A470 and travel through the beautiful Brecon Beacons.
- There are 2 car parks, the first is ‘Pont ar Daf‘ which is the largest and then a little further on is the ‘Storey Arms‘ car park’. Links to Google Maps, it’s very easy to get to either.
- From the other way, off the A40, join the A470 and you’ll come to the car parks in the opposite order.
Hike Map
Hike Profile
- Distance: 5m / 8km
- Duration: Up and down around 2 hours, but you’re waiting for the sunset
- Highest point: 2906ft / 886m
- Difficulty: Easy/Moderate (very clear well worn-path, but steep in places and quite long)
- Route conditions: Well-worn pathways all around, trainers in good weather is fine.
Hike Description & Pics
The best place to start is the ‘Pont ar Daf’ car park, the postcode is Brecon LD3 8NL. The car park can get very busy especially on weekends and good weather, but once you’re there you should see some makeshift toilets on the right and opposite that is the start of this walk, over a little bridge, or you can walk over the little stream.
As you then look ahead, you’ll see the path fade up to the left up to the top, and that is where your going, along the ‘Motorway’ as it’s nicknamed. It’s very clear, quite wide and plenty of places to stop and take a breather and view the mountains as you head up.
As I was saying above, on a good day most people can do this, I regularly see very young children doing it, but please do not always expect the weather to be the same at the top, as it is at the bottom. The weather even on a good day can change for the worse very quickly, and it can get very cold, very windy in minutes, so always go prepared for all weathers, but no need to overdo it, just bringing it up so you are aware.
So, once you arrive at the top, it isn’t actually the top, to your left is a path that leads to ‘Corn Du’, but going this way, you will have a bit of a climb up a small rock face, it is doable, just there is another way to it, but you’ll need to take the path to the right and double back up to ‘Corn Du’.
You can stay on ‘Corn Du’ and take in the sunset, or you can head on over to ‘Pen Y Fan’ to finish off the route, it is higher, and it’s where everyone tends to head too, and to get there just use the path down from ‘Corn Du’ and over to ‘Pen Y Fan’, you will walk into a little shoulder and then up again.
Once on ‘Pen Y Fan’ if you have time before the sun goes down, you can have your pic taken with the stone, and then it’s just a case of waiting for the sunset. At this point it can get cold, so you’ll need to get your woollies out, and as your mostly standing still, get that flask of coffee out, to keep you warm!
Then the view you get of the sunset is up to the god’s, in the pics below we had a mist come through, and as you will see it turned it orange, and it felt like we were on Mars. I was waiting then for my abduction to happen, some nice aliens to show me their planet, and bring me back just in time to head down. Didn’t happen!
That’s it, you’re all done, you walk back the way you came up to get to the carpark and hopefully the weather has been good, and you have had a great experience.
If you would like to download this route onto the Outdooractive app, click the link, all free.
Hope you enjoy this walk, and I’d love it if you could share this post either with the social media buttons that follow you down the screen on your left, or below you in the footer. Also, comments are very welcome, I love meeting new people and talking, and you never know we could meet up on one of our walks.