Wales | Cornwall Photographic

Snowdonia

I’ve just returned from a few days away staying in Anglesey in North Wales. I was staying in a holiday cottage in a village with an unpronounceable name with my friend, photographer and fellow blogger Poppy and her BB, not to mention Lottie, a beautiful white German Shepherd.

I’d never visited this part of Wales before and it was a real pleasure. We were very lucky with the weather and given the forecast was looking so good, we booked a trip to the top of Snowdon on the little train that runs from the station at Llanberis to the very top of the mountain. Poppy stayed with Lottie while her BB and myself set off for the top.

Snowdon is the UK’s third highest peak at 1085m or 3560ft above sea level. The mountain is quite unique of course in that the other two peaks that beat Snowdon in terms of height above sea level, Ben Nevis and Càrn Eige, require a great deal more effort to reach their respective summits. These two peaks I should mention are in the Scottish Highlands of course. As my hiking days are over sadly, being able to catch a train to the top is a very real bonus.

There are two services that run from Llanberis. There’s the diesel service, the only one that had any tickets left, and the more romantic perhaps, steam service. As the picture of the steam service below illustrates however, romanticism comes at a price and I was quite glad I was only able to get the diesel ticket.

70mm f/11 1/640 sec. ISO-100

In my experience, smoke aside, there’s an awful lot of soot in coal smoke. Diesel although not great, is definitely the cleaner fuel.

Given the weather, I knew I wasn’t going to be taking fine art, moody, mountain landscape photographs on my way to the top. I certainly wasn’t complaining however. As the conductor pointed out, there have been very few clear days at the summit of Snowdon this year. We were very lucky to be treated to the spectacular views in the photographs below..

Winding our way to the Summit

24mm f/8 1/400 sec. ISO-100

Looking North, taken from the train

24mm f/8 1/500 sec. ISO-100

Looking north-west, you can see the coastline and the Irish Sea, Anglesey to the right

24mm f/8 1/400 sec. ISO-100

Looking east, back down the line towards Llanberis

24mm f/8 1/400 sec. ISO-100

Looking north-west again, taken from the train, to the right you can just see the rise in the land in the far distance. This is the island of Anglesey

24mm f/8 1/400 sec. ISO-100