The Vision Moment

Tryfan, Ogwen Valley​

I'm trying to spend the summer reconnecting with my family. August is officially meant to be a month 'off work' though, needless to say, it isn't going to work out quite that way.

But last week we were in Snowdonia, walking, biking, climbing and, for a family constantly surrounded by cameras, taking remarkably few photographs. Though when I saw this view of Tryfan, I nearly crashed the truck...

I've driven past the mountain literally hundreds of times, spent days walking and climbing to the top via various routes and it was the first 'proper' mountain that I climbed with my son, who was aged 10 at the time. Those three sawtooth peaks have a special place in my memories. 

But what had me driving off the road, scrambling for my iPhone, to take this particular Instagram shot?

Simply because this is my vision of the mountain, appearing momentarily in sunlight through the mist.

This is how I think of Tryfan. Bright, friendly, resolute and beautiful against the forces of the environment yet also elusive, brooding, moody, with a potential for darkness and danger.

And of course, these words will be wrong, incomplete, inarticulate.

But as usual, the picture says so much more.