The most heavily travelled path up Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, has to the be the Miner's track.
Starting at the Pen-y-Pass car park, the Miner's track starts off relatively flat up to the large lake Llyn Llydaw, but once you've passed that, the path climbs more steeply up to the next lake, Glaslyn, pictured here.
In Welsh, Glaslyn means 'Blue Lake', and the waters of this lake are certainly colourful, ranging from turquoise to a deep blue depending on the lighting conditions. I believe that this intense colour is caused by copper leaching into the water from abandoned mines further up the slope, but I'm not sure on that.
The shore of Glaslyn is a great place to stop and get your breath back before attempting the next, even steeper, stretch of the Miner's track, and the view of Snowdon from here can be stunning if the conditions are right.
On the day I took this photo I was blessed with sun and broken cloud, which gave patches of light and dark over the landscape, one of my favourite lighting conditions.
I managed to get a series of photos while the sun was still shining on the surface of the lake, bringing out all the glorious colour, while backlit high cloud was streaming off Snowdon's summit. Two exposures were needed to get the entire tonal range of the scene, which were then blended manually in Photoshop.
Filename - lake rock mountains 07.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @24mm
Exposure - 1/8sec @ f16, ISO100
Location - Glaslyn, Snowdon, Snowdonia
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Exposure blend used to retain detail in the sky.
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