The Mountain Print
Pen y Fan, in its own contour lines.
The highest mountain in south Wales, drawn from its own terrain: the long escarpment of the central Beacons, its spurs reaching north like fingers, and Pen y Fan marked at 886 metres.
From £19.95 unframed, £59.95 framed · No data needed.
What the print holds
Pen y Fan on paper
Pen y Fan is the high point of an escarpment, and on paper the escarpment is the whole story. Across the middle of the sheet runs an edge where the lines crowd together — the steep northern faces of Corn Du, Pen y Fan and Cribyn — and from it spurs reach out northwards, each a narrow ridge of lines with a cwm cut deep on either side. It is a textbook scarp, steep on one side and gentle on the other, and the print shows the difference at a glance.
Corn Du, just west of the summit, is a second close knot of rings barely lower than Pen y Fan itself; Cribyn, to the east across a col, stands apart as its own neat peak. Further east again the edge runs on towards Fan y Big. North-west of Corn Du the hollow of Cwm Llwch is a deep bite the ice took out of the scarp, and it prints as a bowl of lines tucked under the summit.
South of the edge the ground falls away gently, and the lines open out into long, even ridges running down towards the Neuadd reservoirs and the valley of the Taf Fechan. That southern half of the sheet is calm and wide-spaced, the northern half crowded and cut, and the escarpment is the seam between them.
At this frame the print draws a contour every twenty metres and makes every fifth one heavier. The lowest ground on the sheet is around two hundred metres, so the climb it holds is nearly seven hundred metres from the valleys to the top.
What to frame
Each opens the Studio already framed about the summit. Widen it, close in, or drag the print to move it; the contour interval follows the ground in the frame.
Three ways to draw Pen y Fan
The same terrain each time, and every palette in the Studio on top of it.
How it works
From the Studio to your wall in three steps.
Step 01
Choose your subject
Connect Strava in one tap for a race, a ride or a whole year. Or search for a place, type a postcode for your street on the old Ordnance Survey, or add a photograph — none of those needs an account.
Step 02
Choose your style
Start from a finished design and make it yours: the words, the colours, the size. Twenty-three styles for your own miles, four treatments for a place, six layouts for a photograph, and the old survey as drawn or in your colours.
Step 03
We print and frame it
Pick a frame, check out, and it is printed to order on fine-art paper, framed by hand and posted to you, tracked.
Pen y Fan print: the questions
Bannau Brycheiniog or the Brecon Beacons?
Both. Bannau Brycheiniog is the national park's Welsh name, which it has used first since 2023; the line beneath the title reads Bannau Brycheiniog, and you can change it to the English name in the Studio.
Does it show the path from the Storey Arms?
The print draws the ground rather than paths. The start of the popular route lies at the western edge of the default frame; add it as a named point and it is marked where it stands.
Which way is the escarpment facing?
North. The steep faces are on the northern side of the ridge, towards Brecon, and the long gentle slopes run south, which is why the top half of the sheet is so much busier than the bottom.
Where do the contours come from?
From public elevation data — the Terrain Tiles Mapzen built and AWS Open Data hosts, which join SRTM and national terrain models — traced into lines by the Studio as you frame the print, about sixty of them from the lowest ground in the frame to the highest. Nothing is drawn by hand. The height beside the summit is Pen y Fan’s surveyed one, not a figure read off the grid.
Can I print a hill that is not on this list?
Yes. Search the Studio for any hill by name and it is drawn the same way, framed with the ground around it. The print then carries its name and coordinates but no height: a height on a poster should be the surveyed figure, and the grid is too coarse to supply one.
- Made to orderPrinted for you, never from stock
- Fine-art paperArchival inks, framed by hand
- Tracked deliveryUK delivery £7.85, tracked · worldwide, priced at checkout
- Arrives damaged?We replace it, no quibble
Pen y Fan, on the wall.
Compose it free in the Studio: the frame, the treatment, the palette and your own words beneath. Order it when it is the mountain you mean.
How The Mountain Print works · Every mountain · Paper, frames and sizes