April Snow in Snowdonia Good Friday 6th April 2012

Well, i just could not miss the opportunity to shoot the mountains in April with snow!   are rare occurrence now with global warming  lol
I arrived at Ogwen cottage at about 9 am , there was plenty of snow , and the paths were very ice with compacted snow from Thursdays visitors!
I Had originally decided to climb the waterfalls at the other end of the Ogwen valley , but as i had been informed that not much water was coming down the streams i thought the Idwal area would be better option!

                                                  Up the main path, very slippery!

And a little further up!

What a wonderful place , always looks different every time i visit!

i went off path which was safer, but the 6-8 inch snow depth was slow to walk in, i took the left side to get a view over Lyn Ogwen!

I made it across to the lower falls , which was easier than normal because i could not see the boggy parts and just walked over the snow! 

They are only small falls, but very little water coming down as we have had such a dry winter !

Climbing a bit higher , taking great care as the snow had drifted into deep banks either side of the streams, and therefore could not see the steep edges and did not want to end up in the water! lol

you can see how deep the snow is in this image.

 

I eventually came to the middle falls which has this wonderful single tree, which manages to survive somehow!

Turning around to look back down the Nant-francon valley, the low cloud building all the time.  a light snow shower passed quickly so no problem with the weather today :)

Looking up towards Tryfan, heavy cloud covering all the tops of the Glyders today, another trip to do soon before the butterfly season really starts!

A really great view looking down the valley with Pen-y-ole-wen on the right hand side half covered in cloud!  this is my favourite shot of the day :)

 

and this one taken from the top of the middle falls.

As you can see the snow was banked high either side of the stream and with all the big boulders it was quite difficult moving around, could have been quite dangerous if i had slipped !!!!!

I decided not to go any further, didn't want to put any more strain on my injured foot , after the fall up above this point the other month!!!!!!    the snow was getting much deeper in drifts so was a sensible idea.

Lyn Ogwen  which is just below Pen-y-ole-wen, still covered in low cloud!

I made my way across to the main path leading up to Llyn Bochlywd , but found the snow was very deep, in fact i sunk almost up to my knees on a few occasions but found this pristine area of snow which looked really surreal!

I was up to my knees while shooting this shot!   no other footprints  lol

and finally

Back to the car now, a great half day in the mountains :)  pity no sun!

all images taken with canon 5d2 & 17-40L