Twelve - Herefordshire - The Black Mountain (703m)

This one starts at the little car park beneath Hay Bluff . We weren’t expecting it to be quite so windy and cold, and despite hats and gloves the westerly wind had gathered up a hell of a chill by the time it hit us. We followed the Offa’s Dyke path which ascends to the highest point on Black Mountain.


Start of the walk, following
Offa's Dyke.

Hay Bluff - the start of the ridge
 along Black Mountain

As we walked along the wide ridge towards where the highest point, we could see two people walking ahead of us, who appeared to stop somewhere on the featureless landscape about where the high spot would be, and after a few minutes turn around and start heading back towards us. Ten minutes or so later when we crossed with them on the path, W enquired, "Are you hill-bagging by any chance"? The reply was that they were, and that they reckoned that they had pretty much found the top as the altimeter on their smartphone recorded within 1 metre of the stated height. This was our first encounter with fellow hill-baggers, and made us realise that trying to get to the highest point in each county, no matter how featureless or unassuming is a fairly peculiar endeavour!

Offa's Dyke path.

The summit (640 m) is known as Black Hill, or Crib y Gath, but the locals call it the Cat’s back, as from the Hereford side it looks like a cat, waiting to pounce. The cairn up there looked decidedly squashed so I did make a half hearted attempt to resurrect it. However, we didn’t hang about up there as the wind was picking up even more and W had to pick his path quite gingerly due to a bruised toe.


Small cairn (of sorts)
 at the highest point.

We’d rented a cottage, Ty-Bychan in Hay on Wye , and it was truly wonderful to arrive there and find the heating on and logs and coal stacked up next to the stove. On Sunday we had planned to hike up to Chwarel Y Fan from Llanthony but the weather if anything was worse, and we decided to save a beautiful walk for a more beautiful day and explored underground instead at the Big Pit mining museum at Blaenafon.