: His final column July 2000.

FROM the summit of Moel Dolfrwynog, 900ft in the Blenin Forest above Dolgellau, we watched the evening sunshine spotlight the splendour of Merionneth.

Southwards, Cader Idris wore a miniskirt of mist. From hills dark with pines, Moel Offrwm stood on one side of Nannau and Precipice Walk stretched from the other.

Westwards rose Y Garn and The Rhinogs and, higher still, Y Llethr, all silence and sunshine, like some unfinished part of the landscape.

Ringlets, large skippers and speckled wood butterflies flickered in the world of little things living beneath the pines.

Larch-needles, heaped high beneath the trees, marked great nests of southern wood-ants distinguished by a red thorax.

Overhead came the wheezy call of siskins as we noted flowers tolerant of Dolfwynog's copper: purple milk-vetch, trailing St John's Wort, broad-leaved helleborine orchid.

Through fields of thrift we reached a white patch of vernal sandwort, creamy spikes of lesser butterfly orchid and pink bells of bog-pimpernel.

Twayblades were there with heath spotted orchids in many shades of pink.