Chasing the Sunlight

Watching the weather forecast last night suggested that if I was going to see the sun I was going to have to travel west, into Wales. I'd wanted to visit the Dinorwic Quarry near Llanberis for some time so dutifully got up at silly 'o' clock and arrived in Snowdonia at around sunrise.  Sadly, though there were some lighter patches in the could in the sky, I only briefly saw the sunshine for a few minutes.

I drove via the Ogwen Valley and stopped at Cwm Idwal, where I took this main image of the falls just above Ogwen Cottage.  It is actually a vertical pano made up of two images to get all of the falls and trees into the frame.

I then drove on to the quarry, searching out the hidden waterfall, see extra, which was rather underwhelming given the lack of rain over the last few weeks.  The actual scale of the quarry works had to be seen to be believed, scarring all of the one side of the valley, with evidence that the other side had also been worked as well.  

I'd noticed a humming sound as I walked around the quarry and came across a cylindrical structure with the sound of fans coming from it.  Fortunately, a small sign with a QR code provided an explanation.  The quarry closed in 1969 and a hydro electric power station was constructed 5 years later, including Europe's largest man made cavern, with water being released from a reservoir at the top of the mountain to drive turbines before the water reached Llyn Peris below.  The water could then be pumped back up to the higher reservoir when the cost of electricity was lower to do the same again.

On the way back I checked out the Horseshoe Pass near Llangollen, where the clouds were so low it was almost impossible to see the valley below.  It was also very cold.