APRIL 2023 · ADVENTURE

Black Mountain: Llyn y Fan Fawr camp

Black Mountain, Bannau Brycheiniog

Llyn y Fan Fawr sits on the western edge of what used to be called the Brecon Beacons and is now Bannau Brycheiniog. The eastern end of the range gets the traffic — Pen y Fan, the A470, the car parks. Out here the approach is longer and the numbers lower. This is one of my regular camping spots for exactly that reason.

Golden hour sunset across moorland lake with distant hills — Last light — the hills catching it fast

— Western edge, fewer people

There is a folklore story attached to the lake. A local man sees a beautiful woman emerge from the water, agrees to marry her, and the marriage holds as long as he never strikes her three times. He hits her three times and she returns to the lake, taking their cattle with her. Their sons become the Physicians of Myddfai, legendary healers. It is a strange story, as stories attached to lakes tend to be.

He hits her three times and she returns to the lake, taking their cattle with her.
Llyn y Fan Fawr — April 2023

Green tent pitched on rocky shore beside misty glacial lake — Olive and small against the escarpment

— Lady of the Lake

I pitched the tent on the rocky shore. The tent is olive-coloured and small against the water and the escarpment behind it. A figure standing at the lakeshore in the half-light before sunrise — that image is from the first morning, the sky pale, the reflection not yet formed. Later the water settled and the surface became readable: ripples at the edges, smooth further out, the vegetation at the waterline in focus.

Silhouetted figure standing at lake shore during sunrise — First morning — sky pale, reflection not yet formed

Hiker in yellow jacket traversing misty moorland at dusk — Going somewhere or coming back

— Shore and escarpment

The lichen-covered stone walls on the moorland above the lake are old enough to have lost their original geometry. They follow the lie of the land rather than any surveyed line. In overcast light they are the same grey-green as the grass they run through.

Lichen-covered dry stone wall with moorland slope and mountains beyond — Walls following the lie of the land

— Dusk to dark

Sunset across the moorland lake, the distant hills catching the last of it. The light changed fast. A figure in a yellow jacket traversing misty moorland at dusk, small in the middle distance, going somewhere or coming back.

By twilight the lake had gone dark and the mountains above it were shapes without detail.