No Sleep Till….. Tryfan
I said it before and I say it again, photographers are a bit crazy. When Chris asked me if I want to go to Snowdonia for the sunrise shoot it did not take long for me to decide. The plan was to leave Nottingham at 00:15 on Sunday morning and start walking at around 3:20. To paraphrase the famous song by Beastie Boys – No sleep till…… Tryfan… This should give us enough time to be at the Castle of the Winds just on time before sunrise. Crazy right?
Every time I go on a shoot I have a dilemma about which camera system to take with me. Ideally, I would take a large format but it’s so heavy and clumsy, kind of impossible to carry all the gear with me during the hard hike. Digital is a big no, as it’s super boring and I will have my phone with me which is digital enough for snaps. So I made the decision – medium format it is. I also decided to take a small travel tripod to save a bit of weight.
The walk
All went according to the plan and we started to walk up to Y Gribin at around 3:20 am with the headlamps. When we reached the lake it was clear that we will not make it to the Castle of the Winds on time for the sunrise. Never mind we will catch the first lite on the Gribin edge looking towards the Tryfan.
Sunrise was, well interesting. There was no direct light as the sun rose directly behind Tryfan. But we had some interesting conditions to play with. It did not last long. I managed to do a few exposures and the light was gone. We slowly moved along the ridge towards the Castle of the Winds. The weather completely turned and started to snow!
Then there was not much light at all, we carried on towards Tryfan. We made a stop below for quick lunch and Daniel decided not to walk up the Tryfan. We split up and Chris I pushed on to the top. It was OK but sooo busy at the top. I made few shots on my Hasselblad and then we decided to start the descent.
In conclusion
I can tell you it was hard. That descent killed my legs and I was struggling to get to the car park. Oh man, I was so happy to see the car! Thanks to Chris who did all the hard work driving us home. It was an awesome trip. Really looking forward to the next one!
If you are interested this is the route we did that day:
Did you do any photo trips recently? Where did you go? How much gear did you packed with you?
Let me know in the comment below!
2 thoughts on “No Sleep Till….. Tryfan”
It’s been ages since I’ve been to Snowdonia – that looked like a fun trip. Home again the same day?
Yeah, sure it was fun. Due to restrictions, we returned home the same day, it was a very long day 🙂