Mountain leader issues honest verdict on whether you should queue at Yr Wyddfa summit

An experienced mountain leader has given her honest verdict on whether climbers and hikers should queue when they visit the summit of Yr Wyddfa. Since the coronavirus pandemic and the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, interest in UK beauty spots has soared. And, as people reach the top hoping for the perfect selfie to remember their journey to the beauty spot, queuing has become more and more popular - especially during good weather or busy periods. This topic came to the surface when Lincolnshire hospitality manager Richard Thiedeman hiked to the summit of Yr Wyddfa May 24, but was booed by those in line when he didn't respect the unwritten ‘rules’ of waiting for your turn to touch the summit marker and get a photo. What many of the people who booed him might not of known is that he was completing the three peaks challenge, where participants attempt to climb the highest mountains in Scotland, England, and Wales, within a strict 24 hour time frame, to raise money for their friends funeral. Many people may see videos of climbers queuing to get to the top of Mount Everest in Nepal and think it is a regular occurrence, but according to experienced mountain leader, Gemma Smith, this isn't true. The expert mountain leader and hiking guide shared her honest thoughts on if people should be queuing to get to the summit of Yr Wyddfa after seeing what happened to Richard. She said: "This might be controversial but as a mountain leader I do not think you should be queuing to get to the summit of a mountain unless it is for safety reasons. So I've been a mountain leader for about 10 years now and guiding people on Snowdon is something that is a big part of my job. "I've been climbing Snowdon and in that range for decades, at this point from being quite a small child. The queue for the summit of Snowdon has only really started since about Covid years, the latter Covid years when more and more people were coming and it kind of has come about because people want like their perfect summit selfie. "So people are getting really irate if other people are in the background of it and things like that but unlike mountains like Everest where you know it's very well publicised like the queues on Everest and on Everest like the queuing is there for safety reasons, it's because you're following a fixed line. "You're one behind the other on this line and if you are overtaking that can be an exceptionally dangerous situation if you slip, all this multitude of reasons. On Snowdon that queue is purely there because people want to take a photo, that's it. "For hundreds and hundreds of years people have climbed that mountain without needing to queue and this might sound controversial, but you do not need to stand in that queue to touch the summit cairn on Snowdon. "Now some of you might be a bit upset by that, might be like well I stood in the queue for an hour, it's good etiquette to stand in the queue... there is absolutely no reason for that queue to need to be there in the first place. "That summit cairn area is big enough for people to come, people to go, people to take their photos, people have been taking photos on that summit cairn for decades and years before the whole we've got to stand in a queue to get our summit photo kind of took place. "So if you're one of those people that is complaining about people skipping a queue to touch the top of a mountain, I really would encourage you to think twice about why you're standing in that queue to begin with and if there is even a need for there to be a queue there altogether."