No Hawks, so I climbed a mountain!

I'm a little behind with my editing at the moment, I have just today been editing a shoot from the 18th June at Cwm Idwal. I went down to Cwm Idwal early in the morning (I arrived at about 7.30am) with the intent of waiting around for some RAF Hawks to fly through the Ogwen Valley on their training runs. Unfortunately the cloud cover was so dense that there was no hope of any hawks doing low level flight training, so I decided to scramble up Glyder Fawr, one of the highest peaks in Snowdonia (the fifth highest, over 3000ft!).
It took me about 50 minutes to climb up, I came up from the Cwm Idwal side only to find when I reached the top that there is a path on the Tryfan side, I was hit with a mixed feeling of accomplishment and despair at the same time, I couldn't believe I'd put in all that energy when there had been a path all along, at least I'll know for next time. Anyway, from near the top there were some fantastic views, when I could see them, the cloud cover was insane! The wind kept blowing it over Glyder Fawr, one minute I could see some lovely views, with some great low cloud to boot, the next minute I could barely see 5 feet in front of me! It was a little disconcerting being someone who suffers from vertigo, 3000ft odd up in the air, near the edge and not being able to see 5 feet! Anyway, I ended up with some good shots (well, I think they're good) which will be posted to my flickr account soon, I just thought I'd post this one up so you can see the conditions. This was from near the top of Glyder Fawr looking over Cwm Idwal to Y Garn, you can't see Llyn Idwal or the rest of the recess of Cwm Idwal at all. For a comparison, this is a shot of Cwm Idwal and the lake Llyn Idwal from lower down the side of Glyder Fawr on a clear day. I was higher up the slope, and Y Garn is the peak to the left of this image.

I did get some aircraft shots just before leaving for home, but they were of a couple of helicopters rather than jets. The RAF were out training some of their defence helicopter pilots. I'll be going back for the Hawks.

Cwm Idwal

Well I just spent the evening at the absolutely beautiful area of Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia. I got there at 6.30pm but because of the high altitude and high terrain around the area the sunlight wasn't falling on the areas I had planned to photograph. Still, I got some nice images and will be revisiting, but in the morning I think, to make the most of the direction and softness of early morning light.

I will post the images in the next few days once I have completed edits. I am still editing a few shots from our trip up the Great Orme the other day.

North Wales

Well the move is complete and we're mostly settled in. I love it up here, there is an absolute abundance of different locations to explore and shoot. I have started and look forward to continuing. From countless different castles, to some of the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen (with the exception of some Jurrasic Coast sites), to Snowdonia National Park, the possibilities are endless. I think I'm going to enjoy it here.

Keep up to date with all my photographs by following my flickr account.