Pen y Fan, GW/SW-001 - 886m ASL - SO 012 216 - OS Explorer OL12 - 8 SOTA points       

The rain never came on the Monday - would it come on the Tuesday, 31st May 2005,  when we had more ambitious plans?  Thankfully, no.  It was another grand day.

Jon MW0GWL recommended this one to us when we met two days previously on Waun Fach GW/SW-002.  We stopped in Brecon to buy food, and Jimmy a new daysack after his ripped apart the previous day.  We then continued on the A470, past the Storey Arms, and onto the next car park.  We negotiated the stepping stones across the river, then followed the very well made track all the way to the summit.  This truly was a motorway with literally hundreds ascended in ant trail formation.  These included parties of children on trips, other well-equipped families with well-equipped youngsters, poorly equipped families with poorly equipped youngsters and even a large family & friends group going up for a memorial of a deceased family member.

Ahead of Pen y Fan, it seemed most people took in the high point of Corn Du too, but we remained on the main path around the back of Corn Du, which gave us total shelter from the breeze while we eat our lunch - a selection of Indian snacks from the Morrisons in Brecon.  The views across the valleys, reservoir and summits were stunning, and this was my favourite point of the whole holiday.  We then made the very short final ascent to the summit.  The rememberance group were busy building a memorial cairn and laying the flowers upon it that they had carried up.  Slightly over 30 minutes relaxed operating brought 8 contacts on 2m FM, including S2S with Peter GW3TJE/P on Waun Fach GW/SW-002  

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM on 2.5 watts, except the 2nd and 3rd contacts which were completed on half a watt: