Drygarn Fawr trail head by Llanerch-yrfa.
| Drygarn Fawr from
Llanerch-yrfa Drygarn Fawr |
| Estimated net time | 2½-3 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties, but a little cumbersome in places. | ||
| Drinking water | Water from the stream at the beginning of the route and two stream crossings higher up with potential drinking water (but there's a lot of sheep in the area). | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage above the forest (October 2013). | ||
| Parking | Room for several cars at trail head car park. | ||
| Start height | 325 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 410 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 9.5 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From the town Llandovery, where roads A40 and A483 intersect, in the north-west corner of Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, drive A483 18.0 km (11.2 mi) to the village Llanwrtyd Wells. Turn left towards "Abergwesyn" on Dolecoed Road and drive 8.1 km (5.0 mi). Turn left towards "Tregaron" and drive another 3.9 km (2.4 mi) and park on the left hand side of the road after having crossed two small bridges.
Start your hike by walking 60 metres back along the road and then through an old gate. Head uphill 50 metres and turn right across the fields, above the house. The grass soon gets much longer and thicker, and you can barely see an old farm road. Stay close to the stream after you've passed the house and aim for the forest a little above (left of) the stream. You will find a gate at the start of the forest and a good path at the other side of the gate. Follow this path 470 metres and then cross the stream where you find two small cairns, at either side of the stream. Continue on the path at the other side of the stream. This path soon gets vague and navigation is a little tricky, but if you keep going in the same direction you will soon get up to a forest road. If you don't hit the forest road in a junction you need to make sure you follow it to its highest point, where there is a forest road junction.
From the forest road junction continue on the road going uphill, which soon heads towards right (east). When you get out of the forest, 700 metres from the junction, continue through the gate and then immediately turn left. You will find a vague path which soon gets more defined as it crosses some slightly boggy terrain. Follow this path all the way to the summit, which is marked by a huge cairn. There's also a trigonometric point marker a few tens of metres south-west of the summit.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
This was my first hike this Sunday, after extensive hiking the previous two days, and I had planned to start with the longest hike of the day. Unfortunately it was a miserable day, with rain and dense fog. And with difficult navigation through dense forest and boggy terrain this didn't prove to be a nice hike. Maybe the route is OK on a sunny day, but I will most definitely not give myself the opportunity to try that.
For some reason I messed around a little with my GPS, and after having recorded my last way-point (the point where I left the forest road while descending) I had managed to stop my GPS recording my track. Not a terribly big deal at this point, but still annoying.