It must be said that February's snow was a bit of a disaster for me. The
snow on the beach had melted by the time I got there a few hours later, and
the snow on the hills the next day was shrouded in mist and showered with
rain. Not to mention forgetting to take my camera with me... :-(
So I was pleased to hear of another promised cold spell last week. The
problem with snow though, is that you have to catch it just right. Too soon
and you get snowed on - great fun but not much good for photos. Too late and
it's all melted. Ideally you need to catch the sunny bit in-between (if
there is one), or at least you do if you want some decent photos of
mountains in the snow.
So I chose Wednesday, the astronomical beginning of spring. It was a
fantastic morning, not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately I didn't get going
until the afternoon, by which time things were clouding over quite badly, a
frontal system approaching from the west. I was afraid the day would be
ruined, and began to question whether it was worth going out at all.
But I was already packed by then, so I went out regardless. The first half
of the drive was overcast, the prospects didn't look good. Passing Fan
Gyhirych I was a bit miffed to see that much of the snow had already melted.
Bill had told me there was a good covering the night before, but it had
melted faster than I'd expected.
Fortunately I was headed further east, my goal for the day being to
photograph Pen y Fan in the snow, since I don't yet have any decent photos
of it with my 10MP 400D. My last good snow shots of it were taken with my
4MP G3 from Camlais Pool, near the Beacons mountain centre on Illtyd Common.
So that was my first port of call. It was sunny when I got there, with clear
skies to the east, so it was perfect for photos.
Enough of that, on with the walk...
Driving up Glyn Tarell I passed a horde of walkers. Arriving at the car park
next to Craig Cerrig Gleisiad I encountered another horde, a literal bus
load, emptying from the hill straight into the bus. My mind filled with
images of herds of wildebeest, pack animals whose instinct is safety in
numbers, in comparison to say a cheetah, a solitary hunter, in my case
hunting for photos. It's so much nicer to be out on the hills alone, but I
guess that's a matter of opinion.
Avoiding the busy path, I headed ESE, directly up the steep slope alongside
the cliff. I haven't done much hill-walking lately, so I must admit that the
ascent came as a bit of a shock to my system. I hadn't been up this way
before and it was pretty damn steep, but it was all worth it once I reached
the top. Although the snow had melted from most of the lower slopes, there
was a reasonable amount above 550m, not a huge amount, but enough to
satisfyingly crunch through it, and there was enough sun to make any
photographer happy.
On reaching the summit, I actually bothered to cross the barbed wire fence
to go and stand on the actual top, a small cairn a matter of yards away.
First time I've actually stood on it, so technically I've never really
bagged it before, but I was never obsessed about standing on the actual spot
in the past. This time though, I needed to mark it with my GPS. I was
getting excellent reception with the aid of EGNOS, but my altimeter was
telling me 638m, 9m too high. It was slightly breezy on the top, which may
have affected the reading, and it also made it a little chillier.
The descent to the col was quite pleasant with even deeper snow to crunch
through. I stopped at my favourite viewpoint for a quick snack, before
trying to determine where the col was. There's a boggy bit next to a small
pond, which is the lowest point, but it's not actually the col, since
there's a slightly higher ridge next to it. The col seems to be near to the
pool, which wasn't suitable for reflections due to the breeze, but I still
got a few decent shots of it.
By this time the clouds from the west were starting to look ominous, and
interesting cloud formations were starting to form on the leading edges.
Some rising smoke in the distance quickly flattened out and made a
horizontal streak in the sky, a clear indication of a temperature inversion.
A dark horizontal cloud formed directly above Pen y Fan, which made a nice
photo. I passed another pool on the gentle ascent to Fan Frynych, but there
were no photo opportunities there either. Halfway to the summit though, the
sky became really interesting, with excellent "mackerel" skies.
On Fan Frynych I took another GPS reading, this time 628m, just 1m too low.
In fact, allowing for the usual 1-2m fluctuation, it was pretty spot on,
which surprised me, since CCG was much too high. The reason I called this TR
"Twin Peaks in the Snow" is because I regard these two summits as being
"twins" of equal status, since they're both 629m on the map. I was hoping
that my GPS would give a similar reading for each. Alan Dawson rates FF as a
Marilyn but not CCG for some reason, even though on the older imperial maps,
CCG is actually two feet higher, but in metric, they both round to 629m.
I've emailed him about this but to no avail. It seems my GPS agrees that CCG
is higher, but it shouldn't be by that much.
It must have passed sunset by that time, but I'm not sure because with the
cloud in the west there was no visible sunset. It was getting dark though,
and I made my way to the third pool I'm marked with my GPS to find that it
was frozen! Yes! Result! (Well strictly speaking it wasn't actually frozen,
more like slush, but it definitely wasn't liquid water). I proceeded to take
a bunch of photos of Pen y Fan and Fan Fawr with the pool in the foreground,
very bluish because of the twilight, some of the best photos of the day I
reckon.
From there I proceeded to the large cairn on the NE ridge and took more
twilight shots. This is possibly the best high viewpoint for Pen y Fan and
Corn Du. After that, another short walk NE took me to the junction where I
turned south to follow the path back to the car park. I tried to rush, but I
couldn't beat the darkness. The path was often muddy, but quite easy to
follow, even in the dark, although I had to resort to using my head torch
eventually. It was much warmer below the ridge out of the breeze.
Halfway back I realised that the snow on the cliffs of Craig Cerrig Gleisiad
would probably make a good night photo. It was 70 minutes after sunset, so
technically it was dark (I certainly needed a torch to see the path ahead)
and there was no trace of a sunset in the sky, but I stopped to take a photo
anyway. I had to use the fastest speed of ISO 1600 at the widest aperture of
f3.5, and even then it took a 30 second exposure to record an image, but it
was well worthwhile. I took two in fact, to make a nightime panorama.
The result was way better than I expected, although I didn't realise it
until I got home. The sky was filled with stars and pink/orange clouds,
although the colours must have come from the streetlights of Merthyr Tydfil
to the south rather than the non-existent sunset. A very satisfying end to
the day, as I realised later. At the time, I almost couldn't be bothered to
stop and take the photo (taking photos in the dark is bloody fiddly and it
just looked dark grey and black to me), only the snow on the cliffs
persuaded me to make the effort. In retrospect, it may even have been the
best photo of the day!
Incidentally, Orion was well placed above the cliffs, but I didn't include
that in the photo, the bright star which is in the photo is probably Sirius.
Photos to come later...