All walks › Bannau Brycheiniog: Black Mountains
Bannau Brycheiniog: Black MountainsOffa’s Dyke Path: The Hatterrall Ridge
The highest and most exposed stage of the whole trail, seventeen miles along a ridge on the border with no shelter at all.
- Distance
- 9.9 mi / 16 km
- Time
- 5 hr 30
- Ascent
- 600 m
- Difficulty
- Strenuous
- Shape
- There and back
Where it is
The circle shows the general area, not the exact start. Use the directions link below to get to the car park itself. Contours and paths shown are OpenTopoMap, drawn from OpenStreetMap data.
The route
The Path climbs from Pandy onto the Hatterrall ridge and follows it north to Hay Bluff and down to Hay-on-Wye. Peat and grass throughout.
Worth knowing
- The longest exposed stretch on the trail. No shelter, no water and no escape routes for miles.
- The ridge is the England and Wales border for its whole length.
- Peat can be deep and wet; the path has been slabbed in places.
What you’ll see
The Vale of Ewyas one side and Herefordshire the other, Llanthony below, and the Wye at the end.
Background
The ridge carried a drovers’ route and later became the trail’s most committing section, with walkers regularly caught out by weather.