Sweet Hiking, the Sugar Loaf 2018

Click here for the 2018 gardens index.

Back in June, Yuehong and I had spent a pleasant morning climbing the Skirrid, an outlier to the Black Mountains north of Abergavenny.  Perhaps better known and more visited is the Sugar Loaf / Mynydd Pen-y fal (596m) which is the left hand peak in the view above from the top of the Skirrid. In mid-August, son Chris was visiting and so up we went. There are numerous reports and suggested walks on the web, there is a copy of the route map in our reference book at the bottom of the page.

It seems most people start at the (free) car park (Llanwenarth) on the south side, this is managed by the National Trust who own the summit land. The turning on the A40 west of Abergavenny is not signposted except to the vineyard of the same name and that hardly prominently. The lane up is rather narrow but that doesn't discourage camper vans and Chelsea tractors from using it. Of course, it was during the school holidays but it was a Friday and the car park was full by the time we returned and the lower overflow car park was about half full. However, as the hill covers quite a large area, we saw no one on the route up and even the main route down was uncrowded.

As before, the printed instructions were really only needed to get started, we went straight up the main path and when we came to the wall, we knew to turn left and follow it.

The natural vegetation seems to be bracken and some heather and the best way to manage it is with mountain sheep although human intervention also plays a major part. I believe the peak on the right is Pen Cerrig-calch (701m).

The instructions told us to the follow the edge of a wood down into a small valley, but this is what we found:

My best guess is that they had been larches, elsewhere in South Wales and locally in the Forest of Dean there have been mass fellings  This infection was detected in 2016, there's a map here. We walked down and found these notices flapping in the wind.

As we climbed up the other side, we had our best view yet of our target, we had just crossed from Monmouthshire into Powys but would soon cross back again.

We had the possibility to 'do' another valley but that wasn't necessary as we had long left all the other walkers behind, so we turned right and went up a broad cleared ridge:

Looking back to the right we could see the Blorenge and faintly in the distance, the Severn Estuary / Bristol Channel 

Two ridges combined and ahead we could see the gentle rise which made the top seem rather tame.

This is yet another splendid view looking back.

As we climbed, we got our first view of our previous 'conquest', the Skirrid.

Needless to say there's a National Trust trig point at the top and I grabbed the opportunity for a souvenir picture in the intermittent sunshine and without evidence of other walkers.

The clouds were building and there was a hint of rain in the air, hence the Bristol Channel has to be indicated!

From this angle, our old friend looked small and insignificant.

The temperature was dropping and it was time to put the hood up..

I was a little concerned that Yuehong's bad knee would not appreciate the descent but in fact it was sufficiently gentle and soft not to cause any problems. That's Crickhowell in the distance on the right side, with the Brecon Beacons beyond.

The way down was so obvious that I just relaxed and we duly ended up exactly where I wanted, the junction where we had first met the wall. At our sedate pace, we had completed the walk in rather less than 2½ hours and there was time for a visit to the nearby excellent Skirrid Inn which is steeped in history and claimed to be Wales' oldest pub with ghosts (and toilets to match).

This is the National Trust's own map at the car park, we had gone up along the left edge and come back down on the left side of the red loop. Also marked in blue is another approach from a different car park via the ridge known as the Deri, that will save me having to think next time we fancy a walk in this area but there's obviously endless possibilities.