Yr Wyddfa by the Llanberis Path

The Llanberis Path is the longest of the six paths up Snowdon and the one most walkers use for a first ascent. It leaves the village along Victoria Terrace, past the Snowdon Mountain Railway’s own station, and follows a tarmac lane for the first three-quarters of a mile before turning onto open hillside through a mountain gate. From there it runs close to the railway line for almost its entire length; walking on the tracks themselves is not permitted.

For the first half, the gradient stays gentle by Snowdonia standards, climbing steadily across old sheep pasture. A seasonal cafe, Halfway House, sits roughly midway up and is the only refreshment point on any of the six paths short of the summit, where Hafod Eryri, the visitor building the national park authority opened in 2009, replaced the shelter Clough Williams-Ellis once called the highest slum in Wales. Beyond it the path steepens past Clogwyn, where the railway has an intermediate station, and the ground grows rockier on the approach to Bwlch Glas, the col where the Llanberis Path joins the Pyg Track, the Miners’ Track and the Snowdon Ranger Path for the final few hundred metres to the summit, Yr Wyddfa, at 1,085 metres.

Of Snowdon’s six main routes, this is generally reckoned the least technically demanding: the path is wide and well graded throughout, with no scrambling and no significant exposure. That makes it the default choice for a first mountain day in Wales, and also the busiest of the six by a wide margin. It suits a first Welsh mountain, a walker who would rather not scramble, and anyone who wants a summit café and a train down as a fallback. It does not suit anyone after solitude, and it does not suit a party hoping to be off the hill quickly, since 14.5 kilometres is 14.5 kilometres however good the path. Moel Hebog is 20 minutes south-west for a quieter summit of similar character. Fitness and navigation still matter. At 14.5 kilometres and 975 metres of ascent there and back, it is a full day out, and mountain rescue teams report that most of their Snowdon callouts involve people on this path who underestimated it.