First Proper Mountains
Snowdonia threw everything at us. I think it was testing whether we meant it.
The wipers were going full pelt and the map was telling me the view to my left was spectacular. I had to take its word for it. You couldn’t see fifty feet.
Paying your dues
There’s a romantic version of this life, all golden hours and flat white coffees in scenic laybys, and then there’s two days of horizontal Welsh rain while you learn whether the roof you sealed yourself actually keeps water out. (It does. I was quietly amazed.)
We holed up. I edited the few frames I’d managed, read a book, and listened to the weather. And then on the second evening it lifted, all at once, the way it sometimes does, and the wet rock lit up gold and the whole valley steamed. I was out of the van and up the path with the tripod before I’d got both boots properly on.
The shot that made it worth it
You can see it in the Snowdonia gallery, the one of the light coming through the Glyderau. I stood in a bog to get it and my socks didn’t dry until France. I’d do it again tomorrow.
That’s the thing nobody tells you about chasing landscapes: the misery and the magic are the same trip. You don’t get the second without sitting through the first. We meant it, as it turns out.