Setting off on my usual Sunday morning walk up the Sugar Loaf in Abergavenny, was I in for a nice surprise, a ‘Cloud Inversion’ which I had no way of being appreciated from the bottom of the mountain, and was also something I wanted to experience but had never been able to catch it.
I usually, well all the time really, set off from Church Lane at the bottom of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, and when I arrived it was 1 degree, so had plenty of layers on, hat gloves etc, as I expected it to be colder at the top, as you normally would. Made my way up the lane through what I thought was fog or mist, and all of a sudden it all cleared and those layers started to quickly come off.
The route takes in country lanes, farm land, woods, and then you reach the last gate on the path I take which opens up onto the mountain, not quite at the peak yet though.
I looked over towards the Skirrid mountain, and at first couldn’t believe my eyes, Abergavenny town disappeared to be replaced by a sea of cloud leaving only the tips of the mountains, like a series of islands.
What is a cloud inversion?
A layer of low-level cloud or thick fog in a valley, with clear sky above it, caused by a temperature inversion in which dry warm air at higher altitudes traps colder moist air below it; the occurrence of this phenomenon.
I stayed there just looking around for 20 minutes or so, and then turned around and carried on with my walk up to the peak, hoping at the top I would see the same great views on the other side of the mountain. I also bumped into a few people on the way, and it was all anyone was talking about, a great experience for those who made the effort to walk up there that morning.
So once at the top, the view once again didn’t disappoint, in fact to see the whole of South Wales covered was incredible, and took a few more pics and then one as I headed back down the mountain through the woods the other side, walking through the cloud inversion.
Great experience, and will enjoy that for a while.
