Too long for botany

Three of us set out on a long walk last Sunday from a car park near Abergwesyn to the Llyn Brianne Reservoir. Abergwesyn itself seems remote in our county and the drive between our start point and the place where we met the road again is a long one of over 10 miles over the "Devil's staircase". The walk up Cwm Culent and down Cwm Garach was "only" about 3 miles. I say only as it was quite tough going at times with much boggy and tussocky ground.

We returned through forestry and past the Cefn Fanog trig point (lost in the trees). This return route may have been a greater climb but was actually easier - thankfully.

(The trig point has been photographed by Trig Point baggers - see this, but we didn't bother visiting it!)

There was plenty to see including this very tall and flowering Bush Vetch. There was similarly robust Meadow Vetchling nearby.

Bush Vetch, Ffacbysen y cloddiau or Vicia sepium

There were several abandoned homesteads in the valleys and anthill meadows like this.

Anthills on Nant Culent near Abegwesyn

As can be seen the conditions were not good to start with.

Steph noticed some Bell-heather sheltering from grazing under Gorse:

Bell Heather, Grug y mêl or Erica cinerea

This species is surprisingly uncommon in the county and this record has added a green dot to this map:

We saw a fogbow as the mist started clearing around us.

Below Cefn Fanog

(A fog bow, sometimes called a white rainbow, is a similar phenomenon to a rainbow; however, as its name suggests, it appears as a bow in fog rather than rain. Because of the very small size of water droplets that cause fog—smaller than 0.05 millimeters the fog bow has only very weak colors.)

This is the view back from where we came once we got to the reservoir road.

From the Llyn Brianne reservoir road

Llyn Brianne reservoir from our lunch spot.

Looking down from Cefn Fanog on the way back.