Fan Fawr camp - Bannau Brycheiniog

Fan Fawr sits across the valley from Pen y Fan. It's on the same ridge system but without the path worn to bare earth or the steady stream of headtorches after dark. The plateau at the top is moorland grass — tussocks, boggy channels, the wind moving through it in long pulses. I found a spot out of the worst of the gusts and put the tent up before the light went.

I forgot the phone charger. That simplified things. No signal up there anyway, but the charger meant no alarm, no notifications even theoretically possible, no decision about whether to check anything. The night was off-grid by accident and the better for it.

The wind was audible all night in the grass. Not the tent fabric — the grass itself, long stems in full late-summer growth, rushing and settling. I had the gimbal set up for the sunset and caught the last light over the ridge with the mountains layering into the haze to the north. Pen y Fan and Corn Du were visible across the valley, already in shadow.

The dawn earned the crossing from Bristol. Tent silhouette against the sky going pale, the plateau below the summit still dark, then the sun catching the moorland in gold. No queue. No path sign. One tent and the long grasses going quiet as the wind dropped at first light.