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Winter Snow scenes are always wonderful to photograph, but when it gets really cold the ice formations and blue skies that you get when it's sunny combine to create a really magical vista.

During Late 2009 and early 2010 the weather combined to give Britain one of it's coldest and snowiest winters for quite some time. It was so snowy that NASA managed to take this incredible image which is extremely worthwhile downloading and taking a close look at.

Also fortunate for me, was the timing of this cold spell. It occurred at the new year period where working types like myself were able to spend some serious time in the hills and really enjoy it

The snow lasted for a couple of weeks in most of Wales, and even longer in the hills so it was a wonderful time to be hill walking with a camera.

The area around Mynydd Llangynidr and right across to the Trefil area is an upland sandstone plateau covered in the main in peat bogs with many shakeholes which are collapse features where layers of limestone underneath the sandstone have been eroded by water dissolving them and then the overlying sandstones have collapsed.

This gives the hillside an almost moonscape like landscape which was bought out in stark relief by the blanket of snow covering all the vegetation.

The temperatures were so low that any moisture in the air was being frozen out onto any available surface which in the cases in the pictures was the fencing and the sedges. There was up to an inch (1.5 cm) of ice on some of the plants and fencing

The remaining pictures are from North of Trefil village in the area of Trefil quarries and the Dukes Table quarries by the time we were there the surface of the snow had frozen to create a good waling surface.

A 4x4 car wasn't necessary for the Llangynidr trip because the main roads were well gritted and ploughed, but the trip to Trefil would have been not sensible in a less capable vehicle than we had. As always on the hills in winter we were well equipped and capable of getting ourselves out of the places we were exploring if needed.

The bulk of these pictures are taken with my Olympus E-30 Camera with 11-22mm lens and with my E-510 Camera with 14-42mm lens.

The close up shots with the 14-42 mm lens which whilst a kit lens lives well up to Olympus high reputation for quality lenses

Why not a true macro ... well to be honest it was in the bag, but my hands were so cold and I was getting such good results with the kit lens I didn't feel the need.