Summer is not normally a time when I have much enthusiasm to photograph the countryside or mountains. Here in the UK most of the fields, fellsides and mountains are covered in the verdant green of grasses and brackens, a colour which I don't find very appealing. I much prefer the Autumn and Winter colours of reds, yellows and browns but not all locations lend themselves to be exclusively photographed in the colder months.
Mountains tend to look more dramatic, menacing and generally more appealing during the colder months when draped in Autumnal colours or clad with ice and snow but often a Winter scene cannot be photographed with the most complimentary light due to the wide shifts in the Sun's azimuth. Many of the interesting features or dramatic aspects of mountains, annoyingly, happen to be North facing, this has the problem that the Sun doesn't always highlight these features from a frontal or side on angle and have to be photographed with the Sun directly in front of you resulting in difficult contrast problems.
The options are to persevere with the awkward contrast situations or photograph the scene in the Summer months when the Sun is at compatible angles, but here lies the dilemma, the scenes often don't look as dramatic and are usually covered in unappealing green.
I recently travelled to Torridon to try and photograph a particularly spectacular North facing crag with the intention that the Summer sunrise would light it well but soon realised that it in fact doesn't look very spectacular unless it has a covering of ice and snow and the lochan needs to be frozen for maximum effect, I'll have to go back in the Winter and just hope I can cope with the difficult lighting then.
Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to photograph a remote Lakeland valley, again the light would only be right in May or August, definately green foliage season but I gave it a go and I think I've got a reasonable result.
Ennerdale, a Summer evening up one of the more remote valleys.

Another valley that is awkward to photograph other than in the Summer months is Buttermere and Fleetwith Pike. There is still predominently green foliage around but I used the browns of the lake bed to offset them, hope I got away with it!

Buttermere and Fleetwith Pike, mid August evening.

Please click on an image or visit the Lakes, Tarns and Waters gallery for more.