Black Mountains North from Capel y Ffin

We’ll make our way onto the Western ridge via a path that becomes steep & rocky for a while. Once we gain the ridge, we head NW on a good mountain path to reach the trig pillar at Rhos Dirion. From here we head NE along the headwall of the Black Mountain ridge to arrive at Twmpa (aka Lord Hereford’s Knob). At 690m / 2264’ this is the highest point on our walk. From Twmpa we begin the return by heading SW along Darren Lwyd, a very pleasant moorland route along good paths. The sting is in the tail with a sharp descent off the ‘snout’ of the ridge – we’ll take a zig-zag route to miss some of that. When we reach the bottom, we then have to navigate along a very rough stony section where the winter storms have eroded what was a poor track even before! This is a relatively short section of a couple of hundred metres before we cross stiles into pasture for the final leg of the route. Weather permitting the route gives us varied vistas, and the chance to see ponies, foals, various birds, etc.