AUGUST 2022 · ADVENTURE

Brecon Beacons: Black Mountain

Llyn y Fan Fawr, Black Mountain, Wales

The road ends at a lay-by. From there it's open moorland — no path worth naming, just compass bearing and wet ground that gives underfoot in a way that keeps you honest about pace. I parked up and crossed the bogs toward Llyn y Fan Fawr, which sits below the escarpment of the Black Mountain in a shallow bowl, the kind of glacial lake that looks slightly too deliberate. The water was flat and grey when I arrived. By evening it had turned everything back on itself.

Tent silhouette on moorland at dusk with blue light — Llyn y Fan Fawr, arriving in the blue hour

— Lost wreckage

I'd been here before on a two-night camp, coming in via Llyn y Fan Fach on the eastern approach. This time was faster and wetter. The aim was different too — somewhere in the vicinity there are the remains of crashed aircraft, wartime wreckage scattered across the boggy plateau. I found nothing. The moorland gives up very little when it wants to.

The aircraft are still out there somewhere, gradually becoming part of the bog.
Llyn y Fan Fawr — August 2022

Llyn-y-Fan-Fawr lake shrouded in mist and moorland — The far bank erased by mist

— Blue hour

Tent up near the lake's edge as the light dropped. The ridge above — the long escarpment of Bannau Sir Gaer — went dark first and held it. The tent silhouette against the blue dusk is the shot I came for, whether I knew it or not when I pitched. Later, mist came down over the water and erased the far bank.

Tent silhouette backlit by golden sunrise — Morning backlight through the flysheet

Llyn-y-Fan-Fawr at sunset with mountain ridge silhouette — Bannau Sir Gaer ridge at last light

— First light

Morning came golden. The tent backlit, the lake still, a few sheep already working the plateau at a measured distance. The air had that specific morning sharpness — cold, cut with the smell of wet grass and peat. I walked the plateau east toward the ridge, watching the light hit the grassland at a low angle, every stem individually lit. Sheep grazed the open ground without concern. The stream I crossed on the way out was deeper than on the way in.