With wild, frosty hills in which to roam by day and the warm welcome of market towns and ancient inns at dusk, Bannau Brycheiniog National Park is a fabulous place to escape in the colder months, writes Owen Thomas
DISCOVER
In the small hours of 7 January 1982, the snow began to fall. And fall. And fall. It didn’t relent for 36 hours, blanketing Breconshire beneath a shroud of white and causing all life to grind to a halt.
I have a clear childhood memory of watching from my frozen farmhouse window as my ever-present mountain companions became Alpine, before vanishing altogether in a vast alabaster panorama. Our family home, like so many other farms and villages, was sealed away behind sweeping drifts.
My dad was forced to trudge miles to feed his snow-stuck stock. My mum urged my brother and I to play carefully, as a visit to the doctor would be an impossibility. My younger brother duly responded to this request by ice skating his way across the frozen kitchen floor to a broken arm.
Childhood winters are always whiter in our minds than they probably were in reality. As Dylan Thomas observed, “December in my memory is as white as Lapland”. But 1982 really was such a winter. Both achingly beautiful and eerily bleak, the mountains truly became the realm of ghosts.
As an adult, I still love winter: it is drama in its most awe-inspiring form. The allure of the frosted graveyard lit by watery sunsets, and sunrises. The night sky. The lifebuoy daylight. The mystery of the dusk. The skeletal trees. The glimpse of a fox, red against a stark white field.
In these pages, I hope to inspire you to leave your warm fireside and venture out into the Breconshire hills this winter. To remember what winter was when you were small, and there was little more thrilling in the whole world than sunrise on a surprise fall of snow. Here are seven reasons you should grab your coat and your flask and visit Bannau Brycheiniog.
1. WONDROUS WALKING ROUTES
Winter walks shine a new light on the world that we know. Snow and ice conspire to create an almost alien environment. For a while, beneath a carpet of snow, all traces of humankind are gone.
On a cold winter’s day, I find walking alongside water strangely alluring. One such walk is along the Monmouthshire &
