DECEMBER 2022 · ADVENTURE
Pen-y-Fan: Summit Camp
Central Beacons, Wales
Pen y Fan gets all the attention. It's the highest point in the Beacons, it's on the list, it's where people go. On a winter weekend it looks like a queue outside a shop.
At night in December it's different. This was primarily a test — new sleep system, rated for low temperatures, and the question of whether I'd stay warm enough to get the morning light. The answer was yes, but just. Bedtime temperature was minus eight. The tent fabric stiffened. The full moon made the summit plateau nearly as bright as twilight all night, which meant people kept arriving. Runners, hikers, a rescue helicopter working the area at some point in the small hours. The summit at 886 metres is never truly empty, even in winter dark.
The tent fabric stiffened. The full moon made the summit nearly as bright as twilight all night.
Pen y Fan — December 2022
Snow on the approach, deep in the gullies on the north face. Rime ice coating the vegetation and stones on the plateau. The tent pitched on the exposed ground with hoarfrost building on the outer, and the sunset behind the ridge going purple and blue and then dark. A view from inside the tent with boots visible in the foreground and the sunset landscape beyond.
Dawn was the reward. The sun reaches Pen y Fan before it reaches the valleys below. The cairn marker went from frost-grey to white to gold in the space of minutes. The bowl valleys filled with mist and the ridge fence posts were coated in hoar frost — each post, each wire, precise and white. The mist in the valleys below caught the light from underneath. A runner appeared on the snowy slopes, silhouetted and descending fast.
Summit cairn frosted with ice in golden light. Ridge fence posts white and exact against the clear morning sky.
Hiker in yellow jacket and red hat overlooking snow-covered summit ridge at sunrise
Lone figure in golden light watching sun rise over clouds and valleys from summit
Runner silhouetted against golden sunrise, descending snowy slopes
Brown moorland and path approaching snow-covered summit ridge in soft light
Windswept path towards tent pitched on white snowy plateau with distant ridges
Rime ice coating vegetation and stones on exposed summit plateau
Snowy slopes and dramatic gullies of mountain ridge under pink twilight sky
Deep gorge cut into white snowy mountain slopes visible from high vantage point
Hikers crossing white snowy plateau under overcast sky at dusk
Tent with hoar frost and ice formations glowing under sunset colors
Snow-dusted landscape with layered mountain ridges under dramatic sunset clouds
Misty gullies and slopes creating abstract patterns in twilight
Dark mountain silhouettes beneath purple and blue twilight sky
Snowy ridge and gullies bathed in soft golden light at dusk
Tent pitched on exposed snowy plateau silhouetted at sunset
Boots and lower legs visible from inside tent looking out at sunset landscape
Tent nestled in snow under full moon and star-filled winter night sky
Golden first light touching tent and snowy summit plateau at dawn
Sun rising between mountain ridges casting long shadows across valleys
Golden sunrise light flooding valleys and illuminating distant ridges
Summit cairn stone marker frosted with ice in golden morning light
Aerial view of snow-covered ridge cutting through misty valleys at sunrise
Helicopter perspective of snow ridges and misty bowl valleys in morning light
Morning view over frosted plateau towards distant snow-covered ridges
Dramatic sunrise lighting snow ridges and cloud-filled bowl valleys
Ridge fence posts coated with hoar frost under clear morning sky
Misty valley bowl filling with fog while summit plateau emerges in sunlight
Hiker silhouetted on snowy plateau gazing across mist-filled valleys
Aerial snow ridges and cloud layers creating abstract landscape patterns
Extreme closeup of ice crystals and rime frost coating summit grasses