A quick walk up to the famous Sugar Loaf hill near Abergavenny.
One of most famous hills in Wales, the Sugar Loaf is distinctive enough to be visible from miles around and combines good height (596m) with easy access to be a very busy hill indeed.
I walked the Sugar Loaf from a small car park east of the Summit. The route up from here follows established tracks – as the hill is well walked from every direction – that are generally wide and grassy and offer fairly gentle ascent most of the way. Views on the way up are really nice, not just of the Sugar Loaf, but Bryn Arw, the Skirrid and the Black Mountain range.
The tracks take you through open moorland, along the edge of fields and by odd patches of trees and deep bracken. It is a very pleasant walk, and this certainly seemed to be one of the quieter routes up as when I reached the summit the other paths up were very busy in comparison.
The last section up to the summit is quite steep and rocky, but there are steps zig-zagging up to help. You then walk briefly along the top to the well-worn trig point. I then carried on along the ridgeway and across some rocky points to drop down and then skirt around the summit, back to the same track I came up on.
A really nice walk this, the Sugar Loaf is popular for a reason, and highly recommended.