andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2016-07-06 06:45 pm

The Englishman who went up the wrong mountain, and then back down a river

This is us, on our way up to climb Cribyn:

(Us, in this case being Helen (Mike's girlfriend), Uther, Mike, and my Dad.)

The weather was lovely, and the walk is quite a nice gentle one, particularly as the car park is at 400m, so it's only about a 400m climb to the top. Cribyn is the hill on the left.

Or, so we thought. Following some terribly careless map-reading we had confused ourselves, and Cribyn is the one on the right, while Pen y Fan is the one on the left. It is also about 100m higher than Cribyn. Which was exciting to find out when we were three-quarters of the way up it.

The view from Pen Y Fan to Cribyn was quite impressive though:


As was the view back down the valley towards the (currently empty) reservoir:


To give you an idea of how gorgeous the view was overall, here's a panorama I shot showing the view down the valley, with the path behind us on the left, and the path ahead on the right.

(click to embiggen)

Having made it to the top we decided to continue around the circuit of hills. Mike and Helen popped up Corn Du on the way past, and then we followed a path further on that I found on my OS Maps. OS MapFinder, by the way, despite being a pretty rubbishly designed app was still utterly invaluable. Having offline access to the high quality maps that the Ordnance Survey have produced made life so much easier. Google Maps is frankly rubbish for walking, and OSM is better, but still not great.

However, because OS maps are so detailed they frequently have paths on them which are...not great. In this case, possibly the result of two sheep wandering back and forth. And then, later on, once we'd had to pick Uther up and carry him over a stile, more the result of a singular rabbit wandering next to a river bed. On the plus side, this led us through a bit of gorgeous forest that was incredibly closed in and undisturbed. On the minus side, actually clambering along the side of a river is not an awful lot of fun. In the end we decided not to follow the second half of that route, and detoured onto one that was about three times as long but involved actual roads.

In the end the walk was about 12 miles long, and took us about five hours what with all of the going up and down to peaks and clambering about. And now my legs would like to fall off. Was good though.
flick: (Default)

[personal profile] flick 2016-07-06 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
I quite like OSM, at least for around here: there are lots of unofficial paths through the (open access) woods, which the OS doesn't capture but OSM is pretty good for.
movingfinger: (Default)

[personal profile] movingfinger 2016-07-06 07:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I've started using Maprika and like it---I can add my own maps to it, which makes it very useful. The OSM app sounds far better, though I think it would make me want a larger-than-phone-size screen.
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (Default)

[personal profile] matgb 2016-07-06 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Hah, that sets me back, I walked that route up Cribyn years ago on a Scout trip, I was about 16 I think so 25ish years ago, but the track looks just like I remember it, cool.
cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2016-07-06 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Looks like it was a nice day for that sort of thing!
birguslatro: Birgus Latro III icon (Default)

[personal profile] birguslatro 2016-07-07 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
In the panorama, was it the dog or the man who was walking backwards? (No doubt in preparation for Christmas.)
misbegotten: Field of flowers beneath a brilliant blue sky (Spring Brilliant Colors)

[personal profile] misbegotten 2016-07-06 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing.
darkoshi: (Default)

[personal profile] darkoshi 2016-07-07 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
Such great views.
The panorama shot is very... what's the word? Contradictory/Escher-like. A straight path, in parallel with itself, and a dog walking in the opposite direction as the person holding its leash.
myka: (free to be)

[personal profile] myka 2016-07-07 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow looks like an amazing day :-)