MAY 2023 · ADVENTURE
24mm Grwyne Fawr Bothy and valley camp
Black Mountains, Wales
The Grwyne Fawr bothy is one of the smallest in the Mountain Bothies Association network. It sits in the valley like something left behind — stone walls, slate roof, a cast iron stove inside that someone has kept serviceable. There are books on the shelf, a few tins, the usual supplies that accumulate in these places. The wall beside the door has decades of pencil inscriptions from visitors: names, dates, a few lines of observation. A faded photograph is pinned near the window.
I didn't stay. The bothy was there to look at, to photograph, but I camped wild instead, in the valley proper, beside the stream. The tent went down next to running water under spring foliage. The path in had followed a fence line down from the ridge, descending through rolling moorland, the kind of terrain that looks featureless on a map and turns out to be full of small decision points on the ground.
May in the Black Mountains doesn't mean warmth.
Grwyne Fawr Bothy — May 2023
The night was colder than the month suggested. May in the Black Mountains doesn't mean warmth. Frost on the outer fabric by morning. I was wearing everything I'd brought.
The bothy is early 1900s construction, built for the waterworks reservoir up the valley. That context makes the stone walls make sense — functional, thick, built to last in this climate. The valley feeds the Grwyne Fawr reservoir. The path crosses the stream in several places, via flat stones or just through it.
By morning the frost burned off early. The moorland above the tree line was bare except for fence posts and sky. The stream ran clear across flat rock. The olive tent beside it, still in the morning shadow of the valley wall.
Bothy interior: books, supplies and provisions on stone shelf
Interior of stone bothy with cast iron stove and sleeping bag
Stone bothy with slate roof in remote moorland valley
Mountain stream through wooded valley with spring foliage
Dirt path along fence line descending into rolling valley
Tree-lined path through moorland valley with open fields beyond
Bothy wall carved with graffiti and pencil inscriptions from visitors
Handwritten journal entry documenting night at bothy campsite
Bothy window with faded photograph pinned to weathered wall
Moorland path crossing stream amid rolling grass hills
Bare moorland with weathered fence posts and clear blue sky
Mountain stream cutting through moorland with distant hills
Olive tent pitched beside mountain stream in remote valley