Eryri (Snowdonia)
Before Edmund Hillary stood on Everest, he was clambering around a Welsh hotel's mountain neighbours, and the team's signatures are still on the bar ceiling.
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Quick Facts
- Location
- North-west Wales, across Gwynedd and Conwy
- Designated
- National park since October 1951, the first in Wales
- Highest peak
- Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), 1,085 m (3,560 ft), the tallest mountain in Wales
- Park size
- About 2,130 square km (around 823 square miles)
- Snowdon Mountain Railway
- Opened 6 April 1896, Britain's only public rack-and-pinion railway
- Summit building
- Hafod Eryri, opened 2009
- Dark sky status
- International Dark Sky Reserve since 2015
- Names
- Eryri is the Welsh name; Snowdonia is the long-used English one
The hotel where Everest was rehearsed
Tucked beneath the Glyderau at Pen-y-Gwryd is a small hotel with a very big secret. In 1953 the British team that made the first ascent of Everest used the surrounding crags and cliffs for training, and the members left their signatures on the ceiling of the hotel bar. They're still up there. It makes sense. Eryri is not the Himalayas, but its rock, weather and steep ground have been teaching British climbers their trade for well over a century. Wales's mountains have a habit of turning up in the stories of far bigger ones.
A mountain named after a grave
The Welsh name for Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, is usually linked to a burial mound or tumulus. Legend says the giant Rhita Gawr was killed by King Arthur and buried beneath a cairn on the summit. The giant, so the story goes, had made himself a cloak out of the beards of the kings he had defeated. As for Eryri itself, it is often translated as the place of eagles. Whether or not eagles ever ruled these peaks, the name has recently moved up the billing. In November 2022, the national park authority voted to use Eryri and Yr Wyddfa instead of Snowdonia and Snowdon in its official communications, including in English.
Dragons, Merlin and a very convenient dog
Near Beddgelert sits Dinas Emrys, a wooded hill linked with one of Wales's oldest tales. The tyrant Vortigern tried to build a fortress here, but the walls kept collapsing. The boy Merlin explained why: beneath the hill, a red dragon and a white dragon were fighting in a hidden pool. The red dragon won, and it now sits on the Welsh flag. Beddgelert has another legend, that of faithful Gelert the hound, killed by his master Llywelyn after a terrible misunderstanding over a wolf and a baby. It is a lovely tale, but the version tourists know was largely promoted by an 18th-century hotel landlord with an eye on trade. The grave you can visit is a very good piece of storytelling.
Britain's most unlikely railway
The Snowdon Mountain Railway from Llanberis to the summit opened on 6 April 1896, and its first day ended in tragedy when the locomotive Ladas ran off the track and a passenger died. The line was shut briefly, then reopened, and has been carrying people up ever since. It relies on a toothed rack rail to climb, and it is still the only public railway of its kind in Britain. At the top stands Hafod Eryri, the summit building opened in 2009, which replaced a much-criticised older cafe. Walkers have six classic paths to choose from. The Llanberis Path is the longest and gentlest. The Pyg Track and Miners' Track are busy favourites. Crib Goch, the knife-edge ridge, is a different proposition altogether.
Ice, slate and tiny rare flowers
Eryri's landscape was carved by glaciers. In Cwm Idwal, a bowl of rock and lake, Charles Darwin visited in 1831 with the geologist Adam Sedgwick. It was only later that people realised those curving cliffs and boulders told a story of ice. The mountains also shelter plants that arrived after the last Ice Age and stayed. The Snowdon lily, first recorded by Edward Lhuyd in the 1680s, grows on only a few high, damp cliff ledges. The Snowdon rainbow beetle, shiny and metallic green, lives almost nowhere else in Britain. On the lower slopes, slate shaped the human story. Quarries such as Dinorwic in Llanberis closed in 1969, but the scarred hillsides and workers' villages are part of the slate landscape of north-west Wales, recognised by UNESCO in 2021.
What to look out for
Look for Tryfan's twin stones, Adam and Eve, on the summit, where the bold sometimes jump from one to the other. Look for the wild ponies on the Carneddau, and feral goats on the high crags. Look up, too: in 2015 the park became an International Dark Sky Reserve, so clear nights here are properly spectacular. The weather can change in minutes. A bright morning at Pen-y-Pass can become wind and cloud on the summit by lunch, so pack accordingly. Treat Eryri as the proper mountain country it is, and it will repay you handsomely.
Notable people
- Edmund Hillary
- Tenzing Norgay
- Charles Darwin
- Adam Sedgwick
- Edward Lhuyd
- Vortigern
- Merlin
Test yourself
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