Mynydd Pen-y-Fan is 407m high and sits above the popular Pen-y-Fan pond near Blackwood and Newbridge. As you can see from the above route, I walked from Pen-y-Fan pond and the route is a nice blend of open fields, light woodland and classic country lanes.
Footpaths riddle the area and take you up to the summit in a number of different ways, although the trig point itself is in a private field.
There are lots of birds in the area should that interest you and the walk is a lot more varied than a lot of hills in the area that are largely situated in open moorland.
Towards the top of the hill things open up to wide fields and even wider views of surrounding valleys and ridgeways.
The trig point is in a private field, but a gate looks regularly climbed as people access it. I don’t think such spaces should be privately owned, or at the very least that permissive rights should be given with a stile access to trig points. We did climb the gate to access the trig point to take some photos and admire the views. Previously when I was up here there was no gate and you could access directly from the public footpath.
This was definitely one of the more varied and interesting walks, even if it was quite short and gentle. You could easily include and lap of Pen-y-Fan pond before or after the hill – but a moaning child meant I did not!
As you can see from our track, we took a slightly different route back, avoiding going back through the wooded area for the slightly shorter track route – which was wetter as had a small stream criss-crossing it. We walked it on a dry day, following a very dry period, so this lane could be very wet at other times.
All in all, highly recommended, but beware the trig point being in private land.