Misty day on the Garth and Craig Yr Allt (nr Cardiff).

Updated: May 8, 2019

Garth Hill (307m), Craig Yr Allt (273m) and Caerphilly Common (271m)

Although small Garth on the outskirts of Cardiff has a high vantage point with commanding views of the city, further south over the Severn channel and north towards the Brecon Beacons. I was looking forward to doing this tump along with its sister Marilyn Craig Yr Allt. Seeing as i was down there I intended to throw in Caerphilly Common even though it wasn’t a Marilyn.

Starting at the ample car park and cafe that is located at the base of Caerphilly Common I started with my hiking partner and headed straight up the common (NW) to the trig point. Unfortunately having been plagued with rain for the last three to four hikes, today was a cold, crispy morning and a thick fog laid like a blanket over the valley and we saw nothing…nada!

Next we headed off down (SW) until we hit the A469 and then picked up a mucky path that took us over a few fields to a minor road before picking up a variety of other trails until we hit he well way marked trail that took us up Craig Yr All (West). It wasn’t long before we were walking along the spine of Craig Yr Allt to the top. There is no trig point here and no view today either so off we went downhill and west through the woodlands turning SE at one junction (see gpx route) along forest trails to the bottom to meet up with the Taff Trail. I will add that on this section of the route the trail was immensely boggy for a 50-70m stretch just near the end. You have done about five kilometres up to now.

Here in Gan Y Llyn just follow the gpx route through this urban section until you find the road (Heol Yr Ynys) that is the only crossing point that goes over the A470 to Taffs Well. Then continue along the route using a mixture of roads, side street and footpaths until you find the footbridge that crosses the river taff. Go up the steep zig zag steps that are just beyond and you come out onto another minor road and turn right. You now follow this road until you get to the Garth Inn pub where you turn left and carry on steeply uphill to the base of Garth until the road levels out.

There is a few ways to go up Garth and we chose the path that doubles back on itself at the start of this straight. You are heading west on the road and the path is clearly visible and way marked heading NE. You follow this path steadily uphill and it brings you round in a loop west again to the long broad summit plateau leading to the trig point. We are soon at the trig point and lo and behold, yes no view. We do have a bit of a break here and we are rewarded with glimpses of Cardiff Bay, the Severn and even Exmoor. It didn’t clear completely but it was getting better. On a clear day this place must be stunning, it is such a beautiful and nice little hill to hike up.

Anyway, off we went west…along the wrong path for a bit as we were chatting but we soon turned south caught the main ‘off’ trail that runs down the hill back down to the road and simply reversed the route down to the Taff Trail. We decided to go back up Craig Yr Allt as the views were getting better but as you can see from the map route we followed a different route up. Go straight up the Taff Trail but somehow you have to get above it (we climbed a bank) to hit another route marked on the map as TER Walk. This route leaves the Taff Trail on the right up and zig zags up towards the Taffs Well TV transmitter. Continue up this trail and it brings you to a junction. You can either go left here up and over the spine again or stay just below it which we did as we were running short of time (somebody had a school pick up to do).

Off we went at a brisk pace on the last leg, doing the last 1.5km on the road (the school pick up time was getting closer) to finish where we started and a well earned Mocha. By the time we finished we were pleased as the return leg had given us the views we wanted. it hadn’t cleared completely but it was good enough for us.

Parking and access: Free car park at the start at the Caerphilly Mountain Car Park (over use of the word mountain there) with a great cafe.

Route summary: A mix of good trails and footpaths over a high common landscape in the main. Some woodlands, fields and boggy in places. A reasonable amount of road walking in an urban environment. Three reasonable high peaks to hike over with fine views, not exotic mountain scenery but very pleasant to the eye. 19km with 800m of ascent done in 5hrs 30min.

note: I ‘cleaned’ the route up of unwanted waypoints so the gpx route will show 17.5km 635m of ascent.

GPX files: For gpx files go to the Peakbagger website by following this link and go to the bottom right hand of the page and click ‘Download this GPS track as a GPX file.’