Glencoe ... in the snow!

Following a heavy dumping of snow over much of the north of Britain, a quick check on the Kingshouse Hotel webcam showed that Glencoe was heavily covered in the white stuff - time for a visit up north!
Having nursed a particularly severe case of "Man Flu" throughout the latter part of December the only time left for a visit was over the New Year period - thank goodness for an understanding wife ... or is she simply glad to see the back of me?
With a room booked at the Kingshouse Hotel from 31st December for a couple of days I made the long trek from South Wales to Glencoe in a shade under 10 hours. I arrived in total darkness but the degree of snow cover was obvious; almost knocked down a deer on the A82 across Rannoch Moor too - they are really big when viewed from close up!
New Year's Day was bright and crisp with light snow flurries and litle wind - but with heavily overcast skies calculating exposure would be interesting - as would composition - all the foreground was .... you guessed it ... snow covered!
Ventured up to Lochan Na' Achlaise and old favourite; been done to death but in these conditions offering me a new perspective from previous visits. I came here a few years ago and the temperatures meant that the water in the Lochs had frozen but this visit combined the same low temperatures with heavy coverings of snow too. Another problem quickly arose - where was slid ground and where was snow covering a multitiude of nasties; rocks, holes, water!
As usual the silence was rewarding until a group of photographers arrived to join me at this popular location ... and proceeded to walk across the frozen loch to get a closer viewpoint to the now-famous "tree on the island". Now I'm not sure how deep the water is but a foolish move perhaps? But they were using digital cameras so probably can be forgiven their stupidity!
For anyone who knows the area the beauty of Glencoe is that many superb locations are accessible from the road and at other times there are usually plenty of parking spaces on verges - but the heavy snowfall combined with the work of the ploughs had meant that the verges were now high embankments that did not allow easy parking!
I managed to expose 8 sheets of 5x7 (Ilford FP 4 Plus) along with 3 rolls of Ilford Delta 100 (in 120 roll film in the 6x17cms format) PLUS 2 rolls of colour negative film!! (a first for me).
The Walker performed admirably in these cold conditions; it seemed to thrive on snow and I had none of the problems associated and previously experienced with wooden cameras in such low temperatures. It makes a difference, to me anyway, not having to worry about expensive kit getting wet! On a number of occasions the camera ended up with a festive layer of snow covering whilst set up and waiting for "the" shot; the lens was protected with a Lee Wide Angle Hood so everyone was happy! The Canham 6x17 film back ran out of juice very quickly in such temperatures but a fresh battery and a gel hand warmer taped to the battery compartment solved the problem!
I use both the 120mm Nikon and the 210mm Schneider for the photographs I took and both performed flawlessly too.
I had a bit of a tragedy within the first hour or so of my trip with my Gossen Starlite meter - I inadvertantly stepped on it thinking I had put it safely in the pocket of my down jacket! I hadn't and a backwards step meant that it received the full force of my "full frame" whilst wearing a pair of plastic climbing boots too! Not a pretty sight ... the meter NOT me!
Thankfully the back-up had been brought along - a simple Sekonic Digilite L328; a meter that I rarely need to use and one which I always wondered as to its suitability for large format work; it has no memory or average function and it only measures ambient light in shutter-priority mode whereas I tend to favour aperture-priority metering. However it was fitted with a 5 degree spot metering attachment so it's versatility was improved.
Tragedy Number 2 ... whilst traipsing back to the car in (quickly) disappearing evening light across Rannoch Moor I was hastily following my previous footprints in virgin snow as my outward path had proved without hidden surprises! When a carefully placed foot disappeared through the snow and promptly continued to break the ice layer covering the stream that I had inadvertantly walked across and continued through until I was up to my groin in a combination of freezing peat/water/ice slush. Extracting myself was fun as I was carrying a fully laden Lowepro Super Trekker on my back and my Gitzo tripod in my hand!
Thankfully there were no witnesses to this event and 10 minutes later I was warming up back in the car!
I've processed some of the film and I'm really pleased!
The attached image is a view across Rannoch Moor as evening approaches (well approximately 4pm) taken on the Walker 5x7 on a sheet of Ilford FP4 Plus in 5x7 format. I composed the image with the 6x17cms back and planned to use Ilford Delta 100 but the image was too narrow; so the composition in-camera was a cropped 5x7 ... about 9x17cms! Lens used was the Nikon 120mm with a Lee Yellow/Orange (16) filter to try and put some depth to the sky. The exposure was 1/2 second at f32.