Have the Brecon Beacons ever looked so good?

The Brecon Beacons National Park is an area of outstanding natural beauty beloved of British Army trainees, who frequent it for weekends of exercise, fresh air and teamwork.

Or maybe not.

Maybe it's an area that can look quite attractive on the rare occasions when the cloud lifts and it stops raining and you can haul yourself high enough out of the bog to get a look. And maybe the reason the Army uses it so much is that getting round the place is quite hard work, but not such hard work that they can't load up their recruits with ridiculously heavy bags and still expect them to run for 12 hours non-stop.

The hills themselves are quite strange beasts; their broad, plateau summits and perilously steep sides give them the impression of being vast mountains that have had their tops lopped off. On paper they would appear to be quite easy to conquer, and although they are certainly no great behemoths those flat areas are no walk in the park. Rather, they are a walk through a peat bog. Now, don't get me wrong, bog hopping can be quite good fun if you haven't done it for a while, but its appeal tends to wear off rather suddenly the instant you find yourself thigh-deep in brown, smelly goo. Gaiters will of course help to lessen the effects, but there will almost always be a bit of damp, runny mud that manages to trickle its way into your boot, down your ankle and onto your already-cold toes. And that is not a pleasant feeling at all.

So, as we set off to south Wales last Saturday morning we were expecting to spend the weekend trudging through the mire. We weren't particularly concerned about this as it's what we end up doing a lot of the time, and strangely we do quite enjoy it. However, as we drove further west the world became whiter and whiter. Snow! Amazing! My excitement was tempered somewhat by the fact that I was on hold to the Crucible Theatre box office in an attempt to get snooker tickets and the music they were forcing down my ear was really quite piercing, but by the time we reached the National Park proper the tickets were booked and my attention was turned fully towards the hills. Darn, they looked good!

Our initial plans were for a rather long day out. We parked next to Talybont Reservoir (SO 099197), with an out-and-back trip to Pen y Fan as our goal. As we trudged up through the ever-deepening snow to Allt Lwyd (078189) however, it became clear that this was a little on the over-ambitious side. Not to worry though, the day was quite simply glorious and we didn't really care about tagging summits as we had, after all, been up them all before anyway. We were out and about, with blue skies and sparkling snow, and hardly anyone else was up there with us.

As we ascended a fine ridge up to the first plateau of the day it almost seemed like we were in the Alps, so impressive was the view. Once up on the flat we meandered around in a general north-westerly direction, hoping that the looping tracks we were leaving would make a good pattern when viewed from above. Amusingly, on our way back we discovered that people coming afterwards had used our tracks as a guide, thereby wasting themselves huge amounts of time if they had wanted a direct route to the next hill! We carried on through the col at 057206 and onto the next area of plateau, at which point the view really struck us:

Wow! Pen y Fan looked like a monster! A huge, snow-covered beast with sharp ridges, plunging cliffs and precarious cornices. I desperately wanted to hurry on and climb it. Except, hang on a minute - what's that?

Yuck! People everywhere! Clustering like flies all over the mountain’s towering glory. Maybe we would give it a miss, after all.

You see, a major part of the attraction of the hills for me is the sense of solitude. We live our lives in towns and cities, surrounded by other people, crowded and hemmed in, and so every once in a while (actually, as often as possible) it's good to get away, to stand somewhere in the countryside and have no one else in sight. I am too antisocial to enjoy walking up a hill in a line with tens of others; I want it to be my hill, with my view, and I don't want to share it with anyone other than my close friends. Selfish, I know, but that's the way it is. So I was happy to leave Pen y Fan to the masses and instead enjoy getting knee-deep on Gwaun Cerrig Llywdion.

We did go and tag Fan y Big (036205), mostly because we are shockingly immature and find its name hilarious. But otherwise we were happy to stumble about on our plateau, keeping to the centre so as to avoid the people following the line of the paths which skirt the edge. It was hard going pushing through untrodden snow, and walking through the peat hags felt rather eerie, but I was happy. The hags themselves may have been imposing, but the icicles forming on their sides were beautiful. I broke one off to try as a free 'lolly', but didn't get very far through it as, somewhat predictably, it tasted rather too much of grass and peat.

We wandered back through the col and onwards to the eastern edge of the hill, where we had a decision to make: same way down, or different? Obviously we plumped for the different way, which turned out to be a most excellent choice. The first part of the descent was fairly steep and fairly uninteresting, but then the gradient became even more extreme. There was no way we were going to bother walking down that. Not when we could slide! Richard pulled on his friction-reducing waterproof trousers, I jumped into a survival bag, and we were off!

Initially, Richard was having a great time sliding rapidly downwards, but unfortunately for me we had gone at about the same time and it was all I could do not to slam into his back. Even with my elbows jabbed into the ground to try and brake I was gaining on him. Just as I was about to lose control I lurched over to the right, pulling myself clear. I then careered at an incredible speed down the hill, going faster faster faster. This was better than any rollercoaster ride! After what must only have been a handful of seconds, but which felt much longer, the ground flattened out and I spun myself to a halt. That had been amazing! A university group had watched our descent, and I could tell they were impressed. Casually, we packed the survival bag and trousers away and continued on back to the car.

A tramp through the remains of the snow in the Black Mountains

Christmas, family commitments and wisdom tooth removal operations both real and imagined have rather got in the way of any decent hill days over the past few weeks. The recent snowy weather has compounded such problems, for me at least. Whilst others gaze at snow-blanketed slopes and think 'Brilliant! Let's crack out the ice axe and crampons and go on an adventure!', I have alas been reduced to thinking 'Oh dear, looks like ice axe and crampons are required, I'd better stay indoors.' Such are the woes of wrists that don't work.

However, all was not lost as a couple of weekends ago I did manage to make it out. Rather sportingly the weather warmed up sufficiently to clear the roads of snow and so a group of us set off from various corners of the country and congregated in the car park of 'The Rising Sun' in Pandy, a small settlement to the east of the Black Mountains. This pub - a cosy, friendly establishment that serves a tasty cheesecake - has the added bonus of a campsite attached to it, thus reducing the always unpleasant late-night pub-to-tent dash to mere tens of metres. Treats such as beer and pudding have to be earned however, and so we all set off in one car and drove to the tiny village of Llanbedr.

The Black Mountains are hardly the most rugged or extensive of hills, with there being really only two big horseshoe walks available, however they are not without their charm. Once up on the grassy ridge it is possible to tramp along for miles and miles and miles without any real patches of strenuous ascent; certainly not a place to hone those scrambling skills but ideal when in the mood for a jolly good leg stretch. The views, when they exist, showcase the more famous Brecon Beacons to the west and the vast expanse of the flatter borderlands to the east. A fairly easy, hassle-free, day on the hill then?

Er, not so much in the snow. Okay, so it was hardly chest-deep and in most places it wasn't made horribly slippery by a thick covering layer of ice, but stomping through snow is just so much more tiring than walking on more solid ground. Legs have to be lifted much higher, bodies have to be braced as it's never clear how far down feet will sink, precious calories have to be used up in order to keep warm: in short, it can be quite hard work. Unless, of course, you reach a nice downhill section that's a fairly steep without too many rocks and where the snow is consistently thick. In these circumstances things become much easier: instead of plodding down uncertainly step by step it is much better, and infinitely more fun, to get down on your arse and slide.

Ah, Wales. (wistful sigh)

We left the car in Llanbedr (SO239204), and after a brief road walk found ourselves climbing through farmland up to Table Mountain. This little hill, rising to a modest 450 m, is maybe not quite as impressive as its South African namesake, but it does host an Iron Age hill fort, evidence of which must have been covered by the snow when we visited. From there it was onwards and upwards to the first trig point of the day, the 701 m high Pen Cerrig-calch (217224).

I suppose that Pen Cerrig-calch is a nice hill; in fact I know it is, as I've been up it before with (shock horror!) blue skies and sunshine. But on a cold, drizzly day with the grey clag limiting visibility to a handful of metres it does lose some of its appeal. There was no need to get too grumpy though, as summits are excuses for snacks stops, and in addition to healthier things like dried apricots and malt loaf we had Monster Munch.

As welcome as the food was, you can't stay stopped for long in near-freezing conditions and so we trundled on. It seemed to take an age to get to the next top, Pen Allt-mawr (207244). It may have been only 2 1/2 km away, but the snow had slowed us to a snail's pace. As such, it was a relief when the grey outline of the trig point finally appeared through the fog. The next section was rather more fun as it was downhill and some presented us with some opportunities for sliding; opportunities that we took up with some gusto. Such frivolity was short-lived, however and we soon found ourselves back trudging along on the flat.

We continued on, following the ridge as it wound its way northwards, until we reached a col marked by a well-made cairn at 204286. Here it was time to take stock of things, and to get down to some serious refuelling. It was unanimously decided that the constant drudgery through the clag was wearing rather thin, and so we binned our idea of completing the whole horseshoe and instead decided to take a path heading south east down the valley. This proved to be a wise decision, as barely ten minutes after leaving the col we were rewarded with a view! The sun had managed to sneak through from somewhere and was illuminating the snow-covered slopes of the hills rather nicely. We still couldn't see the tops, of course, but at that point even a partial view was a result.

Our initial jubilation eventually fizzled out and the path became, well, quite dull really. There is a reason that we are hill walkers and not valley walkers. The irritation provoked by the monotony was aggravated further by the condition of the path, which was covered in snow of uneven depths under which lay a soggy, boggy ground. Needless to say, it's not exactly fun when you place your foot forward and it plunges straight through the snow and you end up knee deep in cold, runny mud which inevitably creeps its way over the rim of your boot and down to your already-chilly toes.

There was no choice but to persevere onwards, however and eventually we reached a patch of wood (228245), which made a pleasant change. We continued through this to its end, then trundled through some farmland for a further kilometre or so, at which point we reached the road. From here it wasn't far back to Llanbedr, where we eagerly bundled into the car just as the last of the light was fading, more than ready for our pub dinner.