Rhayder Hiking/Camping Weekend

We decided on a night out in the countryside of Wales, I have a good OS map of The Llandrindod Valley so this is where we started.

We trekked around 5 miles following the river Afon Arban which feeds from the valley into the river which flows from the dam at the reservoir into the Moel Prysgau Wood not far from Strata Florida Abbey, camped and then trekked back following the treeline and across the ridge up to Pen Maen-wern and down a small gulley back to the car finishing off with a cooling walk across the river.

You can see the Car and Camp. 002 is the end of the tree line and 003 is the highest point Pen Maen-wern.

The dam at Caban-coch Reservoir near the Elan Valley Visitor centre

Clive looking at the terrain ahead

The water was Crystal Clear

Once we had trekked across very wet marsh even though the sun was shining, we then found the trail we were heading towards had moved, thanks ordnance survey for keeping up to date. Beautiful view though. We then had a trek down into the woods

Stopping for lunch

At this stage we had freshwater from home, so was easy to find somewhere to get a fire on and cook some grub.

Where I slept for the night

Coffee always tastes better when you put the effort in to build a fire

Cooking porridge in the morning

We then faced a trek back around 5 miles back to the car, the scenic route. The terrain was unforgiving and my new boots ruined my feet. The grass was uber dry, which made for perfect tinder in the very wet woods.

We had filtered water from a stream nearby and boiled to purify, no way we were going to risk it.

View from Pen Maen-wern

We then headed straight ahead and down a very steep slope to hit a river and waterfall where we found much needed water.

The view of the dam from the bottom of the valley

Only half a mile from the car at this point!!

The gulley we walked back down, looking back from the road opposite

We walked a total of 9.99 miles. Weather was perfect the whole two days!