Waterfall Walk II

Why worthwhile? Beautiful waterfalls during an adventurous tour past – and through – a river, including a special extra!

Starting point: Parking lot, on the right hand side of the road of “Pontneddfechan” to “Ystradfellte”. Accessible from “Pontneddfechan”, past the “Information Center” and “The Angel Inn”, drive through the village. Once out of the village across a “cattle grid” and then drive on for about 3km towards a parking lot on the right hand side of the road (just before another “cattle grid” in the road). [Pontneddfechan, Wales – Great Britain]

Time: 3 hours

Details: Tour is comparable with a ravine in the Alps. Steep paths and at several passages support by hands is necessary. Seeing as the river needs to be crossed at one point (without a bridge) a low level of water is desirable: watch out due to the very slippery stones in the water!! Bring along a hiking or survey map, since signposts, hiking books and markings have the tendency to contradict each other.

Route description:

We walk downwards from the parking lot (sign posts “Clyn-Gwyn”) across a broad, sandy road. An information sign follows and further on a fork in the road with signposts. Keep right here (“Waterfall Walk”). Past the “National Park sign” we reach another fork in the road: go right here across a broad path down through ferns. We end up at a panorama point with a view of the “Middle Clungwyn Falls”. A sign alerts us to the danger of slipperiness. One needs to heed this warning, especially at the bottom of the waterfalls themselves.

We steeply descend left, zigzagging past the face of the cliff now towards the waterfall (“Middle Clungwyn Falls”). Once at the fall we keep right and a second steep passage follows: here we can make use of the tree roots as a handhold to descend (almost) perpendicular about 2 metres. At the bottom we reach a point where we can cross the river quite easily. Watch out for the very slippery stones in the water!

At the cross side we follow the path stream downwards. We end up at the “Lower Clungwyn Falls”. Here we keep left and go sturdily up through the woods and that way come across a broad path marked with red poles.

We first make an “excursion” to the “Sgwd Yr Eira Falls”: continue in southern direction past a bench. Keep following the path to a second bench with sign posts: go down right via steep steps towards the river. At the end of the steps at the river, go left and then we have a beautiful view of the waterfall. If you walk on a bit you can even walk behind the water curtain, a unique experience!

We go back to the point where we ended up on the path with the red poles. Now we follow these red poles: we stay high above the river. After a while we reach a turn (signposts “Gwaun Hepste Car Park”), but we keep going straight on until we reach a bridge. We cross it to follow the river stream downwards again. We easily reach the “Upper Clungwyn Falls” this way.

We now follow the path up the mountain (bending away from the river) and that way reach the path leading back to the parking lot.

Done in 2006.