In October I spent another 5 days in Wales.
The Snowdonia National Park has the pleasure of my company once again, This place seems to be my go-to place when I need some time to decompress from work.
Once again me, Bo and my Hasselblad travelled across to north Wales in search of hills, fresh air and beautiful scenery to photograph. Much like my last trip I have returned in the unreliable weather season, Wales isn’t renowned for being dry at the best of times, let alone in October so I didn’t much fancy solo camping with such terrible odds.. (although it turned out to only rain on my last day).
Rather than Llanberis, this time I stayed in Betws-Y-Coed, a lovely little town along the Afon Llugwy river amidst the tree’s and the hills. The town is rather picturesque and the location and amenities make it a perfect location to stay if you want to see the national park!
On my first day I headed for the Nantlle ridge, having arrived fairly late I didn’t have a great deal of time but we made our way up Y Garn, the weather was my favourite combination of dramatic cloudy skies with sunshine breaking through behind Mynydd Drws-Y-Coed, sadly we couldn’t make it past This peak as the way became too slippery along the exposed section and with my camera and Bo I decided it was a better decision to complete the ridge in the summer!
Later in the week I wanted to get some decent walking time in so planned a route from Llyn Ogwen that would take me up the other Y Garn ( by Tryfan), across the two Glyder’s and down past Tryfan. The view ascending Y Garn was wonderful, the route up is a complete slog but looking back over Llyn Idwal, and past Tryfan I couldn’t help but stop and take pictures every few meters. The photograph I got is one of my favourite to date, the sun was shining through bathing light across the back of Tryfan and the valley floors surrounded with shadows highlighting the texture and undulations in the landscape. Sod your blue skies, these are my absolute favourite lighting conditions!
All throughout my ascent of Y Garn the two Glyder’s were smothered in cloud, fortunately breaking by the time I made my way to them, the view across to Snowdon was clear, bar the summit where clouds still lingered, I guess I picked the right side of the pass to hike today!
On the morning of the last day Bo caught her paw under the door as I opened it and grazed her pad leaving her unable to walk properly. We spent the day riding the Ffestiniog Railway from Ffestiniog down to Porthmadog, it was a nice relaxed way to spend our last day before heading home, I love old steam trains for much the same reasons I do film cameras – the mechanics, the nostalgia and their beauty which doesn’t seem to age, you don’t really see in anything built these days that you know will still be photogenic in another 50 years…