NOVEMBER 2023 · ADVENTURE
Picws Du - Summit camp
Black Mountain, Bannau Brycheiniog
Picws Du is the western end of the Black Mountain ridge at 749 metres, with Llyn y Fan Fach directly below the escarpment to the north. The plan was morning views over the lake and the valley, the kind of light you can only earn by being up there the night before. I camped by the summit cairn, close to the cliff edge — the logic being that the wind rushes up and over the rim rather than battering you from behind. The pitch was on an uncomfortable lump of ground that I noticed only after the rain cloud I was trying to beat arrived and the decision was made.
Heavy rain and wind all night. The tent held. There were moments, lying awake and listening to the cliff edge a few metres away, when I ran the scenario: the whole slope giving way, the ground taking everything with it. This is not a rational thought and the geology of Picws Du does not support it, but 2am in November rain on an exposed ridge is not a rational context.
This is not a rational thought and the geology of Picws Du does not support it, but 2am in November rain on an exposed ridge is not a rational context.
Picws Du — November 2023
By dawn the wind had gone. Dense white fog, thick enough to close the view to a few metres in every direction. Silent. The kind of silence that needs complete cloud cover and no wind to exist. The summit cairn was just visible. The cliff below was invisible — just fog and the sound of nothing.
Descending, I crossed the cloud line twice. Above: fog and pale flat light. Below: the moorland visible, the boggy valley floor and the heavy river blocking the route I'd planned. I waded to the path.
Another hiker coming up told me the aurora had been visible from the valley floor the previous night, behind the clouds. I'd been in the fog, on the cliff, in the rain, and missed it by altitude.
Dense fog obscuring dark mountain slopes at sunrise from summit camp
Misty moorland with mountain peak shrouded in thick cloud cover
Winding path through boggy moorland with tussock grasses in mist
Sunlit clouds illuminated above dark mountain ridge at dawn
Golden hour light over layered mountain ridges fading into haze
Yellow tent glowing in twilight on exposed moorland ridge