A Brief Brecon Bagging Binanzie

It was almost inevitable that I would eventually return triumphant from various Welsh places (with strange sounding names) – although the clutch and brakes on the hire car made this perhaps less inevitable than should first be assumed….

But first there was the little matter of the Over the Hill Club Spring Meet and Dinner quite near Llyn Ogwen. I missed the exciting ascent of Tryfan (phew…. close run thing, that…) but got there for the dinner which was at the Bryn Tyrch Inn at Capel Curig and was quite excellent, as was the taxi ride there and back from the campsite for the boozings. Mr Gledhill, the Organisor, did us proud and it were a reet good do. (East Lancs is as near as I get to Welsh, diolch….)

And in the morning, I lurched off to an obscure parking spot “in a field” (according to Birkett) at the far end of the Nantlle Ridge to climb the mainly harmless Mynydd Graig Goch with Peter Crawford, a TGO challenger and Fight Club Hiker.

We had a good walk. The England/Germany “match” (ha!) started without us and after the jollities and pleasantries of the hill, Peter went off to his TV to more brutal facts of life including the second half….   whilst I drove South with radio Wales, who only mentioned the match in passing  “Not looking very good is it Bron?” “What’s that Ivor?”
“The match – not looking very good” “Dunno really, Ivor, who’s playing…?  pass me another leek by the way….”
And so I arrived at Brecon, put up the tent and tucked into the remainder of the Fathers day whisky.

In the morning, I climbed Fan Nedd. (Van Nethh). And once on the top, I looked over towards Fan Gyhirych (I can tell many of you are struggling by now…) and decided it wasn’t very far, so I went over and bagged it. On the way back, I also bagged Allt Fawr and another one that I’d seriously need to look up, but it was of little account anyway, apart from being 604 metres high.


A sneaky contouring path around the corrie (Cwm) of Fan Nedd meant that I didn’t have to climb it again.
Later, on the campsite, I had a drinks and brown bread party with the campsite chickens. They had the brown bread.
Another instalment later…….
I’m quite warming to this by the way…..

For those interested in statistics - The walks were 4 miles and 1200 feet and 10 miles and 2100 feet respectively