Cadair Idris my nemesis
Following on from my previous blog post I decided to yet again go and have another go at getting my shot from Cadair Idris especially as I was so close last time. I check the weather and a gorgeous day ahead was forecast with little wind so I set off at 10:00am. After leaving Welshpool heading to my destination I hit traffic, which was at a standstill. Great! I waited for 20 mins but nothing was moving so I span the car around and decided to try my luck over the hills across B roads to go around. I drove for around 45mins then eventually got back onto the main A road where I wanted to be then 5 minutes later I hit traffic again. A total standstill nothing moving so I got out the car to try and find out what was going on and to my surprise it was the Tour of Britain. Thanks Wiggo!
After an hour wait the road was reopened and I was finally on my way to Cadair. The weather was hot with little cloud around when I finally arrived so I set off on my ascent nearly 3 hours behind schedule but I still had time to get up there before sunset. I do love this 6 ¾ mile walk taking the Minffordd path which starts with a leg burning solid steep path through a wooded gorge which then leads to the spectacular views of the mountain lake of Llyn Cau enclosed by the crags of Craig Cau. From here a climb up onto the ridge where you can walk around the rim to Penygadair, Cadair’s highest pont.
During the climb I could see the clouds beginning to thicken but decided to continue in the hope of some miracle that the clouds would clear. Obviously they didn’t and it ended up quite a challenging walk in places where visibility was very low. On the way down I did get the camera out and took the shot shown in the title image, not the shot I was after but a nice shot all the same. All weather sites were forecasting clear skies for that evening which again shows care needs to be taken and how unpredictable mountain weather can be.
This mountain sure does not like me but I will be back….Next time in the snow!!!!
With years of experience and a number of award winning photographs Nigel Waters is a UK landscape photographer based in Worcestershire. With a passion for the great outdoors and continually chasing the light to capture beautiful photographs his landscape, seascape and nightscape photography will give you inspiration to get out and explore the best British landscapes have to offer.
