Plan A, oh yes indeedee

The UK was gripped for a few days in an 'Arctic blast', the Mountain Weather forecast noted snow falling, less endearing were the words upland gales and wind chill in minus double digits. I thought it best to wait for the wind to ease and finally initiate Plan A.

A 20 second exposure

When the forecast finally predicted that winds would drop, Plan A was finally rolled out. Parking up at Blaen-y-glyn car park and there was a lot of cloud overhead, maybe it would break up?  Ice was conspicuous, but there wasn't as much snow as I'd been expecting and not full on winter conditions. I appreciate the effectiveness of crampons, but the convenience of Kahtoola micro spikes generally wins out for the Brecon Beacons terrain, the crampons were left in the boot. The path up had some interest in parts with sheet ice, consolidated snow and thigh deep drifts, the going was good though, courtesy of walkers who had trail breaked on the preceding days. Up on the plateau a few things became apparent.

Caerfanell valley

Extensive hill fog covered the Brecon Fans and higher ground, which was disappointing, as these summits were to form the main composition viewpoint. The northerly wind was also a lot stronger and buffeting, this was bad for both windchill and tripod stability. Conversely, the northerly wind was a good thing too, as cold, clear, moving air offers excellent visibility and clarity, not something that can be typed too often, as the UK has a maritime climate with moisture laden air. The cloud overhead was extensive, but the south easterly horizon appeared clear. There seemed little point in heading off to be enveloped in fog and plenty of time to spare before dawn to revise my plan and find a viewpoint. The chances of side lighting were minimal, a pity as the landslide under Cwar y Gigfran might have had some potential,  a view of the sunrise down the Caerfanel valley offered the best hope, with the misfit streams in a glaciated valley.  I dumped the rucksack and spent 30 mins scouting the edge of Craig y Fan Ddu for i) a sheltered viewpoint and ii)  I needed to keep moving to keep warm.

I was fortunate enough to get a red sky and horizon for dawn and sunrise, less fortunate was the wind strength and buffeting, which made most long exposures soft and forced a move to the sheltered ground around Blaen Caerfanell.

With sunrise over,  I decided to cut across Gwaun Cerrig Llwydion to the Craig Cwareli overlooking Cwm Oergwm, the aptly named cold valley. Gwaun Cerrig Llwydion is a plateau. in part covered with an eroded and eroding surface of blanket peat and as the ground was frozen solid, the joys of shin deep bog were negated. In any case the snow mantled peat hags would offer some interest, whilst waiting for improved weather to hopefully manifest itself.  Wind ablation of snow created this mildly unnerving scene amongst the peat hags, anthropogenic snow heads with grass for hair.

Snow heads

The mechanism(s) for blanket peat erosion, forming peat hags, hasn't convincingly been proven, but  whatever the cause, the peat hags on Gwaun Cerrig Llwydion are impressive in their size, number and extent. I also managed to disturb some the resident Red Grouse on my wander.

Brief sunlight

Before everything had froze solid, water draining from the blanket peat had formed icicles and the weight of ice hanging had visibly stretched and pulled down on the vegetated layer covering the peat. Once this protective vegetation mat is removed, the underlying peat is exposed to the elements and weathered away. From my limited observations, icicles indicating water draining from blanket peat usually appeared in the 'head wall' of an erosion embayment, cutting back into the blanket peat.

Icicles

With the sun showing signs of breaking through the cloud and Cribyn's summit clearing of hill fog, it was heads up and time to explore the views.

 The cloud masking Cadair Arthur refused to play ball and clear, sigh.

Cwm Oergwm

Craig Cwareli was fully exposed to the wind, the windchill was pretty severe and I was thankful to Canon engineers for designing a camera that I could operate wearing gloves.  At the head of Cwm Oergwm there's a suite of landforms at the foot of the escarpment that have proved elusive for me to photograph, I was hopeful that snow cover and a BW conversion would reveal their nature, with the benefit of hindsight, I probably needed a better point of view, perspective and more snow. Some of the landform features represent cirque glaciation moraines, other landforms are more contentious and have provoked some discussion on their nature.

100mm BW

After 6 hours on the hill, the ominous darkening of the sky and lowering of cloud base, signalled an end to day and time to head home. Plan A had at last been rolled out, but I'd have liked the hills to have cleared of fog/cloud for dawn and try again to get the views I'd last seen in 2013. On the other hand I'd probably have missed the views over the Caerfanell valley.

2013 Dawn

2013 Sunrise