Hiking

This is later, at the Carpenter's Arms. I tried this shot with and without a flash, and this is the one without.

Once again, it appears that either I had defective film or strange camera behavior. The scanner may have calibrated itself wrong as well. One way or another, I got another photo that I think looks somewhat weird, but in a good way.

Again, this is another weird shot from Abergavenny that may be the result of bad film or strange camera behavior, but which again is "artistic" enough so that I felt like posting it.

This was another one of my shots from the Abergavenny hiking trip. This one's a little bit dark and I'm not entirely thrilled how the edit came out, but it is still good enough, I think, to continue the series.

This wasn't from the summit of Black Mountain, where we were climbing, but it was as high as we got. We at least were slightly above the clouds, as you can see.

Snowdon, at 1085 metres, or 3,560 feet, is the tallest mountain in Wales. Recently, I was in a group who climbed it, making it my first summit in many years. This was my first proper film photo on the way up.

As on many hikes, most of the routes up Snowdon give wide panoramic views of the landscape. Assisting in this is that Wales has relatively few trees.

Here's another view of the landscape on Snowdon.

I don't remember the name of this body of water, but my understanding was that it was an artificial reservoir. further information would be welcome. I got especially lucky with this photo in terms of the exposure and the reflection in the water.

This, if I'm not mistaken, is another angle on the reservoir, but the gloom makes it less dramatic.

I took several photos, at different exposures, from this position. I was trying to get the cloud ceiling, as I thought it was dramatic.

This is the benchmark at the summit, which is actually a mound of rocks that probably isn't natural. It was crowded with people, and there was a line. The lines on the benchmark indicate the distances to different landmarks.

Here's a view from the summit. The summit was in the clouds when we arrived, and gradually cleared up. In the meantime, it was cold, wet, and generally unpleasant. The crowds were enormous, in spite of the weather and the moderately difficult route up, and the cafe was so overcrowded that it was physically difficult to move in and out. This sounds like a frivilous, yuppie, complaint, but when it's this crowded you need restrooms. For both food and restrooms, it seemed hopelessly inadequate.

Just by chance, the River Taff was swollen and nearly flooded when I visited this time. Here's a cameraphone shot of it looking much more dramatic than usual.

The River Taff bisects Bute Park, so a series of bridges make it easier for joggers, hikers, and so on to cross it. This is Pontcanna Bridge.

This is an alternate shot of Pontcanna Bridge.

I had intended to visit this reservoir for years, as it has a swimming area and it's easy to get to compared to Slapy, for example, but I just didn't get around to it until this Fall, and by then it was too cold to swim. I took cameraphone shots, though, and hopefull these will remind me to try again next year.

The reservoir isn't particularly big, as I took this from the dam and you can see the other end, where the swimming area is.