Great Rhos trail head above Dolau.
| Great Rhos from Dolau Great Rhos |
| Estimated net time | 2-2½ hours. | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | No stable access to running water. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (April 2013). | ||
| Parking | Room for a couple of cars at trail head. | ||
| Start height | 430 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 260 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 8.0 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
|
||
| Route photo |
| ||
Assume you drive road A44 west, and your starting point is Worcester. Drive approximately 90 km to Penybont and turn right onto road A488, signed "Knighton". Drive 4.8 km and turn right onto an unsigned road; this is approximately 250 metres after the left exit to the railway station. Drive 1.6 km uphill on this single lane road, and park at the end of road, in front of a small building.
Start your hike by continuing along the mountain road, in a southern direction, for 2.1 km. Turn left onto a wide path and head east uphill until you meet a fence. The path now turns left, towards north, but you should climb the low fence and continue east/north-east another 700 metres to the summit, which is marked by a concrete cairn.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
I had been at our Warwick office since Tuesday night, and instead of travelling home on this Friday night I had booked a flight for Sunday night, allowing me to continue my bagging of the 50 most prominent mountains in Wales. Since I was flying out of London on Sunday I had chosen to visit southern Wales this week-end, and started with an evening hike to Great Rhos. The evening was fairly grey, but I avoided rain, and ended up having an enjoyable outing.
One thing that surprised me on this hike was the amount of snow in the mountains, and my hike included a fair bit of off-path hiking in order to avoid the wet snow on the eroded mountain road and path. This caused no problems, since the ground was firm, but up to 50cm snow in southern UK, in mid-April, down to 400+ metres, is definitely not normal.
After my hike I drove to Brecon, where I managed to get a room at the Castle Hotel, which turned out to be well worth the money.