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By William Fiennes

A friend once sent me a text message from the top of Pen y Fan in South Wales. Mostly he just wanted to show off about his new phone, which he called a “video-enabled hypertrinket”, but I remember how excited he was by the famous walk that rises from the Neuadd reservoirs near Talybont and follows ridges round the summits of Corn Du, Pen y Fan, Cribyn and Fan y Big before dropping back to the dam and the Taf Fechan conifer plantations. I’ve wanted to walk the Brecon Horseshoe ever since.

A December morning: dense, low cloud, and a misty rain that seemed to hover rather than fall, as if water were simply a facet of the air. In waterproofs, hood up, I climbed to the ridge called Craig Fan Ddu behind a squad of soldiers on a training exercise, day-glo yellow and orange panels shining on top of their backpacks. The soldiers peeled away to the west as the sky cleared. Peat and moss underfoot put a spring in the step. There were no birds. Wind tore across the ridge from the east. Ahead, one cloud hid the tops of Pen y Fan and Corn Du like a shower-cap.