This rugged, less crowded and maybe less dramatic area of the national park has a wilder underrated charm.’
This Winter I’ve made a commitment to myself to get out into nature at least once a week and blog about the trip, the photography and what I’ve encountered. Mostly as an exercise for myself, but I’m hoping that there are at least a few people that can take something from it. Nevertheless, I researched a tonne of walks and areas to visit that I had never visited before and compiled a pretty strong list, and The ‘Dragon’s Back’ was my first stop.
The ‘Dragon’s Back’ is pretty popular in Wales, it’s a series of hills leading up to the moors which resemble the humps of a dragons back, hence the name. Located in the heart of the Black Mountains at the eastern end of the Brecon Beacons national park, it features commanding views over the local valleys and mountains with the remains of an Iron Age fort, which tells you everything you need to know about how significance this mountain pass had in ancient times. With a fort here on the lower slopes of the ‘Dragon’s Back’, at the entrance of the pass it could control all the movement through the valley from mid Wales coming and going South. The Brecon Beacons northern edge marks and provides a natural barrier between Mid and South Wales, and the ancient Celtic tribes utilised this while fighting amongst themselves, and eventually the invading Romans.
The walk starts from a honesty box car park and follows a horse track on the side of the road, until turning right up a country lane. From here you can’t really get lost, unless you unfortunately wander into the farmhouse at the end of the lane before the path continues slightly right. The weather changed from sunny and warm to howling wind and snow showers in the space of a few hours. Once you reach the top of the ‘Dragon’s Back’ you have the option to continue onto the path to the top of the second highest mountain in southern Britain, Waun Fach. Up here the terrain flattens out onto a welsh upland moor, which has an eerily silent but beautiful atmosphere to it. As the light was fading quickly and the snow started to fall, I decided not to wander to far up here, I turned back hoping to reach the car before I lost the light completely.
The thing which struck me the most about this area of the national park was that I hadn’t previously considered coming here, and after this initial visit I definitely felt I’d been missing out. It’s a quieter, less crowded and maybe less dramatic area than the peaks and spines of the central Beacons, but it has its own underrated charm. The Black Mountains provide stunning views of the more popular mountains of the national park, The from here looks directly west following straight across the northern edge of the mountains. I was more than happy to have a peaceful and undisturbed view of Pen Y Fan and its sister peaks, rather than join the selfie queue at its summit.
On a serious note it’s worth mentioning that Pen y Fan has become so popular these days, that cars line all sides of the road for hundreds of meters on the weekends, as even the new car parks simply cannot take the volume of people wanting to climb this iconic mountain. It’s hard to feel the same magic climbing Pen y Fan these days, although I think people wanting to connect with nature is great, there are still wilder places not too far away, in the national parks hidden valleys and far flung corners.
