MARCH 2024 · ADVENTURE
Dragon's Back and Waun Fach camp
Black Mountains, Wales
The OS map does not adequately communicate how steep the Dragon's Back is. The contours look manageable on screen. On the ground the ridge is a series of short, sharp steps that require hands in places, the kind of terrain where your pack shifts and you have to think about where you put your weight. Add thick fog and saturated ground and the whole thing takes twice as long as the profile suggests.
I was racing the light to find a camp spot. The plateau up top is broad enough but boggy — pools sitting in the heather, the ground moving slightly underfoot. I got the tent down before dark. A white tent on red-brown moorland at 800 metres, the nearest valley invisible below the cloudline.
On the ridge with no noise and no light pollution the colours felt disproportionately large.
Dragon's Back and Waun Fach — March 2024
Then the weather changed. It does that in the Black Mountains — not gradually but decisively. The rain stopped. The wind dropped. The clouds broke enough to give a sunset, and the sky went through amber and orange and teal in the space of twenty minutes. On the ridge with no noise and no light pollution the colours felt disproportionately large.
Waun Fach at 811 metres is the highest point in the Black Mountains. It does not look like a summit. The ground just levels off and stays level. At dawn the plateau was clear and the ranges to the south and west came out in blue-grey layers, each ridge a slightly lighter tone than the one in front. The Dragon's Back showed itself from above as a clean diagonal, steep on both sides, a narrow path running its spine. You can see from the aerial view why it has the name it does.
Coming down I passed a moss-covered fence post with a farm notice and a strand of wire. The sign was standard issue, nothing unusual. But in the context of everything above it — the ridge, the bog, the overnight weather — it looked like the most grounded object I'd seen in two days.
Waun Fach mountain silhouette at sunset with fog valleys below
White tent pitched on red-brown moorland with distant green valleys
Aerial view of steep Dragon's Back ridge with rocky path and valleys
Hiker standing on foggy, rocky mountainside with moss-covered ground
Lone white sheep resting on moorland vegetation with green valley background
Patchwork of golden moorland and green cultivated fields stretching to mountain ridge
Mountain plateau emerging from thick fog with subtle texture and contours
Layered mountainside with sharp ridge line partially obscured by cloud
Misty mountain valley with visible waterfalls and dark eroded gullies
Mountain cirque features with cascading streams and rolling moorland slopes
Rolling golden-brown hillside merging into thick low-lying cloud layer
Ridge terrain with scattered dark vegetation patches under grey cloud
Extensive moorland view with multiple ridges, valleys, and dispersed settlements
Mountain crag with waterfall disappearing into fog and moorland slopes below
Barren hillside under thick cloud with minimal vegetation near summit
Steep moraine-like slopes with eroded gullies through moorland vegetation
Golden sunset sky transitioning through orange and amber tones at dusk
Soft pastel sky gradient from teal to warm amber at golden hour
Mountain silhouette against warm orange sunset with plains stretching below
Dark mountain ridge against pink dawn sky with distant plateau
Multiple mountain ranges layered in blue-grey haze at sunrise
Landscape shrouded in mist with pink sky reflecting across foreground
Dragon's Back peak silhouetted against golden-pink dawn light
Boggy moorland with pools and stream winding through rough terrain
Moss-covered tree stump with farm notice sign and wire fence
Aerial panorama of Black Mountains ridges and valleys at dawn
Hikers traversing steep diagonal path across mountain ridge under open sky