MARCH 2024 · GROUNDED
Borderland: Hay Bluff
Black Mountains, Powys / Herefordshire border
Hay Bluff sits at 677 metres on the border between Powys and Herefordshire. The escarpment faces east and on a wet day the wind comes straight at you off the ridge. The path up is straightforward — a long approach across wet moorland, then a steeper pull to the top — but in March with the ground saturated it's a question of finding the least boggy line and committing to it.
From the top, the landscape below is layered: the patchwork fields of the Herefordshire plain, forests, the Wye somewhere in the valley. Under grey sky it reads as a set of muted bands, each one paler the further it recedes. A brown and black pony grazed while I was up there, unbothered by the weather or the views.
The regret arrived about three hours later on the drive home.
Hay Bluff — March 2024
Out on the moor, across the bogs to the north, there's a standing stone — an enigmatic monolith in the older sense of both words. I knew it was there. I walked past its general direction. I did not photograph it. The light was wrong, I was wet through, and the approach would have meant another twenty minutes across bog. The regret arrived about three hours later on the drive home. That's the one that got away from this outing.
Three frames from the day. Not every walk yields more.
Ponies on moorland: brown horse grazes while black pony stands beyond on grassy hillside with hazy mountains
Wet moorland path winds through golden grass under stormy sky, Black Mountains ridge beyond
Pastoral borderland from hilltop: layered fields, forests, valleys under grey sky, distant ridges