OCTOBER 2022 · ADVENTURE

Ystradfellte: 4 Waterfalls and Sarn Helen

Ystradfellte, Fforest Fawr, Wales

The Four Waterfalls Walk in the Ystradfellte area normally runs through gorge woodland along the Afon Mellte and Nedd Fechan. In late October after sustained rain it runs differently. The water levels were the highest I'd seen this circuit: the Mellte running full and fast, the waterfalls themselves transformed by the volume — not the clean curtain you see in summer photographs but something heavier, louder, pushing spray well beyond where it usually reaches. Some of the riverside paths were closed. The diversion signs pointed uphill into the trees.

Small stone shelter on moorland beneath rolling hills — Residual light, high moorland

— High Water

The woodland on the approach is ancient, mossy, genuinely dark in places. The forest floor is a continuous green surface — moss, more moss, fungal brackets on fallen logs. Delicate fungi on a damp rock face. The handrails on the steep sections descend through dense canopy. Wooden handrails going down: the path trusts them more than the gradient suggests is reasonable.

The wind made this implausible — the kind that resolves the tent location question for you.
Ystradfellte — October 2022

Mossy forest floor and gnarled trees creating moody woodland tunnel — Ancient, genuinely dark

— Gorge Woodland

Sgwd yr Eira is the waterfall you can walk behind. That was still accessible. Standing on the ledge behind the falling water — the curtain of white in front, the gorge and the opposite bank framed through it — is one of those experiences that photographs can suggest but not replicate. The spray gets into everything. A photographer standing before the falls: the water volume made the spray mist thick enough to show in the frame.

Multiple tiers of waterfalls in gorge surrounded by moss-covered rocks — Heavier than the summer photographs

— Behind the Falls

Higher up on the moorland, the plan had been to camp on Sarn Helen — the Roman road that crosses Fforest Fawr — near the standing stone Llech Llia. The wind made this implausible. Extreme, sustained, the kind of wind that resolves the tent location question for you. I dropped down to a lower and more sheltered position and attempted night photography. The small stone shelter on the open moorland caught the residual light. The moss-covered standing stone near Pen y Fan — dark, solid, old enough to make the wind irrelevant — was already there when the Romans named their road.

The weathered hiking signpost at the forest junction points in three directions. The weathering makes reading it a task.