What to do

What to do, when you can't go out? The conditions have been great. Snow covering the landscape, crisp clear weather, and chillingly cold. It was around -12°C, with a wind chill of -20°C in this area, and one of the areas that I wanted to go to was down to -36°C. Perfect weather for me.

But I caught a cold a couple of weeks ago which unfortunately developed into pneumonia, so I've been under house arrest for the past week!

Perfect conditions, and stuck in the house!

So I took the opportunity to go through and clean out some older images, as well as take a look at a few images from a recent hike to look for new locations, that had slipped my mind.

Most of my current searches for new locations are around the area I'll be moving to, hopefully towards the end of this year. They usually start with Google Maps to get a rough idea of the structure and form of the landscape. By using Crtl and the mouse you can see a 3D representation of the map which you can guide yourself around. Combine this with the Terrain view and you can get a very good idea of what the area will look like. Then it's into TPE to look at Sun and Moon positions.

Afterwards, the only thing to do is to go to the location and see if it's really what you expect. The tools are great and can save a lot of time, but as good as they are, the only way to get a feel for a location is to be there.

The weather was great, but it was good enough for a nice walk in the hills. The exact locations that I'd picked weren't quite what I had expected, although they were very close. The rocks and cliffs were not quite as represented, and some trees were blocking the view. But from these points I was able to find spots that would work very well.

 This first image is from close to Belchenflue, looking towards the Restaurant Berghaus Oberbölchen and further on towards the Swiss Alps. Although the weather wasn't optimal on the day, I was still lucky to see the cloud inversion of the lowlands, as well as be there at the right time for the clouds to open up for a moment and bathe the restaurant in sunlight.

In slightly another direction the clouds were creeping in further towards me, between the hills. This view will definitely be re-visited.

From very close to the same location and with the light changing slightly as the day moved on, I was able to catch this image of the Ankenballen and Turm with a very old world feel to it.

A successful trip with at lest two new locations to re-visit.