Today I’m writing about this little adventure that I did on a weekend End of January this year. The forecast for the mountain was about clear sky and windy. The aim for this day to do a little – not too exhausting – hike to one of my favourite locations. Not just getting some physical exercise and some fresh air – but also to practice photography in cold and windy conditions.
To me, this was a little different from “regular hikes” as I would spend more time at the summit with less physical activity. This also means that I have to dress up more to resist against the freezing wind that would become uncomfortably cold otherwise.
Walking up was nothing spectacular. With micro spikes on my feet, poles in my hands I hands and my rucksack, I ascended the well-known trail. I enjoyed the fresh air, the sound of the wind and the clear blue sky and the solitude.
Finally, I approached the treeless summit. I knew already: as soon as I leave the trees, it’s going to be windy and chill. As expected, this wasn’t an issue as long as I was moving. I quickly headed up to the summit and once there, started to wrap myself into wind protection and covered my face after having a quick snack.
After calming down and having a snack, I started to unpack my camera and scout for motives. The blue sky was indeed a challenge. So, I concentrated on snow structures and the gusts of wind blowing icy crystals over the surface. I didn’t rush and walked around, kneed down, changed perspective and took various photos. Yet not being satisfied, I reckoned a small step next to the summit over which the snow was blown.
“This might be interesting!” I thought, laid down to be close to the ground, fiddled around with the settings of the camera and started to wait for the next gust to blow snow into my face. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait for long. I just took photo after photo and played around with the auto focus, which got a bit confused by all the snow. Next time, I’d maybe use manual focus.
After a while I felt confident, that my photography adventure wouldn’t get any more highlights. I packed my rucksack and started heading down. During the way down I almost lost my phone (which I wrote about earlier) – but luckily everything turned out well.
Summarized, I am glad that I did this tour. Technically it wasn’t particularly challenging: Not extremely high, not dangerous, not exciting. But for a good adventure that stays in my memories I just need a good time – and maybe a couple of nice photos.
Well prepared and executed. I love the snowy and icy mood of the pictures as the remind me to some snow hike I did in the past. 😉 Thx for sharing
Thank you very much! It was really such an awesome day out there in the cold!