The park formerly known as the Brecon Beacons: table-top summits, a waterfall you can stand behind, and south Wales's darkest skies.
Bannau Brycheiniog National Park still gets called the Brecon Beacons by most people who go there, including plenty who love the place — old habits and all that. The Welsh name was officially adopted in 2023 as part of a wider shift by the park authority, and it means “peaks of Brychan’s kingdom” — nothing sinister, just the place going back to what it was called before English mapmakers got hold of it. Nobody’s going to tell you off for saying Beacons.
Whatever you call it, it’s a proper chunk of south Wales — 1,350 square kilometres of it, designated back in 1957, running from Brecon in the north down through some genuinely wild country. The hills here are mostly flat-topped sandstone, so the summits have that distinctive table-top look rather than sharp peaks. Pen y Fan is the big one at 886 metres, the highest point in the park and in the whole of south Wales, with its neighbour Corn Du right alongside.
If you want Pen y Fan without overthinking it, the route up from Pont ar Daf or Storey Arms is the one everyone does — well-trodden, manageable for most people with a reasonable level of fitness, and honestly a bit of a motorway on a sunny bank holiday. Get there early if you fancy some peace. These hills are not soft, though, however popular they get: the weather turns fast up there and the Army uses this ground for training for good reason. Check the forecast, take proper layers, know your route.
For something quieter, head to the Black Mountain in the west — singular, one ridge, topping out at Fan Brycheiniog — which is not to be confused with the Black Mountains in the east, plural, a completely different range. Whoever named these clearly wasn’t thinking about future hikers trying to plan a day out. Down in the south-west you’ve got waterfall country around Ystradfellte, where Sgwd yr Eira lets you walk right in behind the falling water. And after dark, the whole park is designated dark-sky territory, so it’s worth staying over if you can.
