Wild camping - two bites at the cherry

The met office and mountain weather information service respective forecasts converged to deliver the prospect of potentially a decent sunset AND following sunrise AND I was free of work commitments = wild camping trip. With the sun rising and setting near to the maximum azimuth of summer solstice, a north facing view would offer the best prospect.  The Carneddau in Snowdonia were long overdue a visit, but as so often, 24hrs out the weather forecast changed and not for the better. The plan was revised to further south in Wales, Fforest Fawr and the northern escarpment of Y Mynydd Du, with its scarp and suite of glacial and periglacial landforms. It's an area I know fairly well and a location although well photographed, hasn't quite yet made it onto the UK's landscape portfolio bucket list. Despite some valiant efforts, I've failed miserably to get a respectable sunset/sunrise image of the view and geomorphology.

The weight of the wild camping pack made for slow going up a very modest gradient across the moorland, giving me plenty of time to reflect on; my physical conditioning was sub prime; the ascent of the Carneddau would have been an interesting experience; George Monbiot's observations on the environmental destruction by sheep is pretty much on the money; the flowering bog cotton clearly demarcated areas of degrading peat and when stringers of cirrus cloud started streaming across the sky, I'll confess to wondering why I bother. I did stumble upon a delightful camping spot, a raised fairly level pitch on moss covered ground, a nearby stream and a pitch with a wonderful backdrop, things were looking up. With the tent pitched, dinner cooked and heartily eaten, it was time for a wander.

With wanderlust in overdrive a gulley was ascended on Fan Brycheiniog to see if there was anything of floral interest and on ledges inaccessible to sheep, there was a surprising diversity of flora, most of it past its photograph 'best by date' or inaccessible, a cushion of mossy saxifrage was the highlight.

The main viewpoint for sunset was the escarpment of Bannau Sir Gaer with its suite of geomorphological landforms and exposures of sedimentary geology. With a viewpoint found, there was plenty of time until sunset to stand back and contemplate Deep Time. The youngest features visible are the alluvial fans at the foot of gulleys and vivid active debris flows that scar the hill slopes, some geomorphologists speculate that the active debris flows have been initiated due to a change of grazing regime to predominantly sheep grazing around 1600AD. The next suite of landforms are the talus cones formed from freeze thaw weathering of mudstones/shales and undermining of overlying  sandstones'siltstones, and represent periglacial weathering at the end of the last Ice Age, with minor accumulations in the holocene. The scarp foot landforms and the cirque enclosing Llyn y Fan Fach indicate possible permanent snow beds and the presence of glacial ice of the late Devensian stadial. Though there are landforms that appear 'fresh' in appearance and other landforms with an older, less defined features, possibly demarcating landforms formed either side of an interstadial between the Older and Younger Dryas stadials. There's also some intriguing overprinting of landforms, that indicates an event chronology; alluvial fans 'gulleying' and burying the talus deposits; talus deposits infilling depressions and overriding scarp foot landforms and some of the scarp foot ramparts show successive crests or ridges implying retreat/advance of glacial ice/snow patches. Then it's into Deep Time proper, with a gap of some 280-300 million years to the end of the Variscan orogeny and the folding of bedrock into the South Wales syncline. Back another 70 million years to the end of the Devonian, conglomerates were uncomformably deposited onto a strata of the Lower Devonian. The lower Red Devonian sediments originated from a vast mountain chain eroding to the north. A few miles to the north, in the Myddfai Steep Belt, Silurian strata is almost vertical in attitude and striking SW to NE it represent an expression of the Caledonian orogeny and what is now believed to be a terrane boundary, that pushes the geological history back into Proterozoic.

With sun always setting into a blanket of cloud it was a case of making the most of the last rays of warm light for an image.

On the walk back to the tent some thought was given to what the Cirrus clouds heralded for dawn.

The resident Sky Lark population woke me before the alarm sounded about 03.00hrs, with the tent being buffeted and an ominous 'booming' noise to the west, suggested the weather wasn't going to play ball. A look outside and the NE horizon seemed promising, alas Y Mynydd Du was blanketed in hill fog, sigh. Plan A was abandoned and other options considered with a cunning photography plan B of an image of flowering bog cotton at sunrise formulated.

Eroding peat hags reveal a land surface that is probably representative of its appearance at the end of the last Ice age, when this area would have been tundra.

The weather then deteriorated rapidly and a damp hill fog blanketed everything, which made for an interesting bit of compass work to find the tent again.

The weather seemed set in, so I 'rested my eyes' for a while and opened them to find the hill fog lifting and cloud breaking up, the best of the light was long gone, but the tent pitch deserved a record shot before breaking camp and heading home.

Winter light and colour

This post covers two excursions to the Brecon Beacons National Park and locations avoiding the high winds and gusts to gale force intensity, the sheltered lee side of scarps/hill sides.

The first trip was an afternoon excursion to the eastern flank of Y Mynydd Du, to coincide with the departure of a weather front and the relative shelter of the Old Red Sandstone escarpment. Anomalously high Autumn temperatures - well into winter and grass was still holding a green tinge of growth - and an absence of frosts, hadn't brought the rich palette of colour to the upland sedges and grasses, the cold spell over the festive season might have rectified this.  This area also encapsulates the headwaters of the Afon Tawe and the lake Llyn y Fan Fawr, it is fair to suggest there's no shortage of moisture and recent heavy rainfall had left the ground saturated with surface water streaming down the hill, streams in torrential flow and below ground the natural soil pipes were revealed with water flowing into normally dry gulleys.

The moorland also has a number of eroding peat hags, an increasing UK wide phenomena that is causing some debate as to the cause, in environmental and earth science circles

Eroding Peat hag

The erosion of preat hags does reveal a ground surface covered in rock debris, much of it angular in nature and probably a relict land surface from the the end of the last glacial stadial 11,500+ years BP when this area would have resembled arctic tundra.

Rock debris revealed by eroding Peat.

On the theme of controversy and Ice age landforms, Llyn y Fan Fawr has prompted some discussion of its origin, an active glacier is the popular consensus, there are alternative views though.

View to Llyn Y Fan Fawr and present outlet stream (not visible)

I can't find any references, but the moorland does seem to have a suite of landforms arraigned normal to the down valley glacier ice flow.

There's also a scatter of erratics, that might be from winnowed moraine or till and on the western flank of Fan Gyhirych a series of lineations that are discordant to the southerly dipping bedrock, these have been postulated as glacial lineations.

Fan Gyhirych glacial(?) lineations

With the wind easing, I ventured up onto the escarpment for a look around. On the way up, the path  exposed these mudstone, siltstone and sandstone beds, that nicely sum up the composition of the Brownstones formation.

Sandstone, siltone and mudstone beds, of the Old Red Devonian, Brownstones formation.

The wind was still on the strong side, so only Fan Hir was visited for a view over to Fforest Fawr and with ominous cloud rolling in from the west it was back to the car.

View from Fan Hir

On the way down, a stop to record the infant Afon Tawe flowing through soliflucted sheets of glacial till.

Infant Afon Tawe

The 2nd trip was an afternoon excursion too, the morning wasn't the best and the Mountain Weather Forecast hinted strongly that even with a weather front clearing, walking at elevated and exposed routes would be challenging, so keeping the tripod steady seemed optimistic for dusk, more interesting was the forecast of sunshine and snow showers.  The car parks for popular low level walks would be full, so the National Nature Reserve of Craig Cerrig Gleisiad and Fan Frynach, seemed the best bet for quiet and some views. The National Nature reserve has a lot to offer from a geomorphology and flora perspective, I'll hope to cover these aspects in future posts/visits, as the images on this trip were of the views. I'll add that the Mountain weather forecast was spot on.

Cadair Arthur

I've always known the peaks of Corn Du and Pen y Fan as Cadair Arthur, but this name seems to have fallen from favour in recent times. A pity, as viewed from the NE the twin summits do appear arm chair like, the connection with Arthur I have no idea, but there's a thread of Arthurian folklore in the Brecon Beacons NP.

Breaks in the cloud were few and the showers were light in intensity, the final image, just caught some light before the sun dropped below the hills.

The National Nature Reserve makes for an interesting outing with plenty to see and varied routes at high and low levels.