JANUARY 2024 · ADVENTURE

Llyn Cwm Llwch camp

Central Beacons, Wales

The glacial lake sits in a perfect circular bowl at the base of Pen y Fan's north face. A cirque — the glacier that carved it left a geometry too precise to be accidental. From the drone directly above, Llyn Cwm Llwch reads as turquoise-bright against the dark peat moorland, a colour that doesn't belong to January but is there regardless. The mountains surrounding it are rounded, grass-covered, the rim of the amphitheatre continuous.

Aerial view of perfectly circular lake in mountain amphitheatre with distant valleys — A geometry too precise to be accidental

— The cirque

I camped at the shore. The tent went up in the late afternoon — green dome against grey sky, the lake surface calm beside it. January dark comes early and the temperature drops with it. The purpose of camping is to be there at dawn, and at dusk, and at whatever happens in between.

The purpose of camping is to be there at dawn, and at dusk, and at whatever happens in between.
Llyn Cwm Llwch — January 2024

Close-up of ancient tree with moss-covered twisted roots and exposed wood — The structure the growth hides

— Night at the shore

What happened in between was worth it. At dusk the lake held a purple-and-pink reflection of the sky, the tent glowing amber from the light inside. Dawn brought a pink and purple sky over the water, the dark mountains framing it, the reddish mineral deposits visible at the lake's edge in the aerial — a ring of different colour where the peat gives way to rock.

Illuminated tent glowing on dark moorland beside dark lake at dusk — Amber from inside at dusk

Dawn landscape with pink and purple sky over lake, dark mountains and moorland — Pink and purple at dawn

— Wind-shaped trees

The ancient oaks on the approach moorland do not grow straight. Wind has shaped them continuously into bent, gnarled forms, the trunks describing decades of pressure. One tree photographed close shows the moss-covered twisted roots and exposed wood — the underside of the canopy, the structure the growth hides. Nearby, reddish earth is exposed where the vegetation has been worn back, the warm tones contrasting with the surrounding brown and grey. The smaller scrubland beside the oaks holds the same bent and twisted character at a lower scale — every shrub leaning the same direction, the wind's signature visible across the whole hillside.

A rusted corrugated metal farm building on the hillside above the valley. The aerial view of the lake edge shows the stream leaving the cirque, following the contour down.

Gnarled wind-twisted tree on exposed moorland with reddish earth — Decades of pressure in a single trunk

— The morning descent

Other walkers descended the grassy slope in the morning, the forested valley and rolling farmland below them. They'd been to Pen y Fan, probably. The summit draws people. The lake, by comparison, had the morning to itself.