Every year I try to get away to some mountains with no agenda other than to take candid landscape photography and enjoy the outdoors.
This year Dan and I spent a few days walking/scrambling over Snowdon and the two Glyders. Naturally, visibility was as poor as you’d expect but we still had a good leg stretch. Both of us were nursing colds before we even started but we had already decided to travel light. I managed to squeeze all of my overnight bivi kit, food and camera in to a 38L Osprey Mutant.
Dan and I commented a few times about how much faster over ground we were with such lightweight kit. The most freeing thing for me however was that I left my tripod in the van – intentionally! This meant I sought new and different angles. The image quality of the Fuji XT-3 is good enough that I didn’t even miss the tripod,
We were greeted with some incredible light on our second morning. The photo above was shot with the brilliant Fuji 55-200mm lens. I adore my 50-140mm but it’s too heavy for this sort of trip. Still, I’m really glad that I had the reach, and optical stabilisation, of the 55-200mm.
Backpacking kit used for this 3 day trip in Snowdonia
- Alpkit Hunka Bivvy
- Mountain Hardwear Lamina 20
- Thermarest Neoair
- A homemade lightweight shelter
- Montane Lite Speed – an amazing jacket!
- Mountain Equipment Dewline
- Mountain Equipment Ibex trousers
- Runderwear
- Icebreaker 200 Oasis – didn’t smell after 3 days!
- Lorpen Socks
- Salomon XA Elevate
- Alpkit Kraku Stove
- Firepot Meals
- Homemade gorp with Almonds, Apriocots, M&Ms and Skittles
- Salami – lots of!
- Peanut Butter
- Fin Crisps
- Fuji XT-3
- 35mm F2 WR
- 16mm F2.8 WR
- 55-200mm F3.5-4.8
- Peak Design Capture