AIBU to skip the queue at the Snowdon summit?

[MadMAGA]

The BBC is reporting arguments about people queue-jumping to get to the trig point at the top of Yr Wyddfa (Mount Snowdon). Apparently queues have been up to an hour long!

I can understand queuing for a photo at the top, but if I just want to get to the top and go straight back down again then why would I queue behind the insta crowd?

I walk past queues at the bar (where I actually like being). There’s zero chance I would queue for this. Touch the top, move on, have a photo on the way up or down if you must, away from other people.

I agree with this, although having these honeypot sites does attract people away from equally good but less well known locations, meaning those in the know can enjoy some peace and quiet.

I did The Three Peaks challenge in 24hrs, luckily we didn’t have any queues but I sure wouldn’t have waited if there was. Maybe selfish but my aim was to complete the 3 mountains in the 24hrs, not take a photo at the top of each one.

We went up on Saturday and just didn’t bother with the trig bit. It’s man made anyway, and anyone saying you haven’t climbed Yr Wyddfa if you just go to where the cafe is is being ridiculous.

If I’d been on my own I might have just walked up round the side and tapped the trig, “skipping” the queue, but with the kids I didn’t want to get involved in rows.

It’s pretty dangerous to stand in queues for hours getting cold after sweating on your wag up too.

Personally I think they should just ban taking photos at the trig and then the queue disappears, and no one can be accused of being impolite. We should go back to just remembering some things in our heads!

All that said, we had a fab experience and will definitely either do it again or do some other peaks (the nearest to a mountain we’ve done before is Ben Ledi in Scotland)

I dothink there should be a campaign against the Three Peaks 24hour challenge. It's horrible for the environment and the locals and promotes poor driving and poor parking. Plus if you're in such a rush, you miss the best bit of being in the mountains.

I didn’t really mind there being lots of other people about on the climb (we went up Pyg track). Everyone was lovely and encouraging to each other and there was a fab atmosphere.

I do go walking elsewhere where it’s quiet and enjoy that too but it was all in good spirits and I thought it was fun.

The majority of the people queuing won’t have been from the train unless they were walking back down, you only get half an hour at the summit on the train and the queue was longer than that when we went. If you just want to tap the top, fair enough to skip the queue, if you want a photo you wait.

I walked up a couple of decades ago. Can't remember if we went to the trig point, I don't think so. Those last few feet/ metres were irrelevant compared to the others. And the point was personal satisfaction not a photo.

If you walk up ignore the trigger point. It's irrelevant.

If you are there for a photo then queue

Mountain Leader here. I've lead quite a few Summer ML training sessions in North Wales.

There is no need to queue. The whole queuing system has been instigated by a bunch of townies who have ZERO knowledge of outdoor etiquette. The same people screaming "There's a queue ya know!" are the same people who are playing their bloody blutooth speakers at full volume up and down the Pyg track.

COVID/lockdown opened the outdoors to the "Great Unwashed" who should have stuck to clogging up the aisles in B&M and Sports Direct.

The amount of litter, human excrement, bad parking and general erosion is truely depressing.

I've worked bloody hard to gain my mountain qualifications and no bloody Lonsdale wearing ejit on his first visit to Eryri is gonna tell me that I "must" queue.

Yr Wyddfa is NOT Everest. On Everest the queues often talked about in the Press are actually connected with safety on very steep/chossy ground and the large amount of climbers, at the peak of exhaustion, sorting ropes out etc.

High Altitude mountaineering ethics do not apply to Yr Wyddfa. If they did, we would all be wearing down suits, carrying oxygen and queuing up like proper British gents.

I wish they would all just feck off. I really do. Just get back to Lego Land, Chessington World of Adventures or waddling around Cribbs Causeway or feck off to some bloody modified car meet. Just leave the mountains to those who know how to behave themselves.

Skip the queue. It’s not a supermarket it’s a mountain! You’ll never see these people again, they’re only doing it for SM!

This.

These twits with the need to spend 5 minutes trying to get an Instagram ready picture are pathetic and annoying. They need their own queue.

Yanbu @MadMAGA

Why would anyone do it except for SM? If you have climbed to the top you don't need to touch the trig point. You have got to the top, those last few metres are irrelevant compared to the thousands you have climbed.

I don't remember whether we touched or got to the trig point. It is only a 'thing' because of SM

Lollllll I saw this news story earlier and I’m laughing at the idea there’s an AIBU about it already 🤣🤣

I was there on Saturday. There were kind of two queues to touch /photograph the trig point (one queue was more orderly than the other) but I didn't see anyone getting a photo of just them. There were always multiple people in the photo. No-one seemed to be complaining from what I could hear.

I joined the less orderly queue, got a photo of me touching the trig point in about five minutes with a huddle of others in the background, then took a separate photo of the view elsewhere.

Didn't seem to be any bother at all.

If you want a solo photo maybe go up there at 5 am!

I disagree it's just for social media, I wanted a photo at the trig point/trig points on other mountains to prove I'd done it decades ago before social media.

I’ve always touched the trig point on a mountain. Seems strange not to want to do that, like running a marathon and stopping just before the finish line.
I queued at the top of Ben Nevis. You can’t really have more than 2 people at the trig point. I had to touch the trig point after such a gruelling walk. Because I’d queued, I felt like I’d earned a photo (this did NOT go on social media) compounding the problem.
I’d have been peeved if anyone had walked past me. Might be a bit different to Snowden though because you’d literally block the route for the queuers at Ben Nevis.

I had this discussion with DH and DD as we shall be that way soon and we decided that .... Well, What's the point? Get to the top, have a drink and a sammich, go down. Queuing to touch the trig? Why on earth would you do that? Seems utterly nonsensical to me.

A lovely sammich? You could follow that up with a nice plate of pissgetti and a packet of cwips. And don't forget desert! LOL LOL LOL

Just for the sake of accuracy (I used to work on that railway), hikers outnumber railway passengers 9-1 over the course of the year. Obviously the railway only runs to the top for half of the year so the numbers will be a bit closer on the days that it is there, but still more hikers.

Did a multi peak challenge for charity a few years ago and decided not to queue. Here's my photo from the top, but I'd have rather liked to have been able to touch the trig point so YANBU.

I’m doing snowdon next year and I will be skipping any queue. I hike alone and I don’t care for pictures. If anything, I’ll take a quick video touching the trig and leave. Absolutely ridiculous they’d queue for a photo at the trig. They really need to get a grip.

plus, when I was at Whernside for the first time I just edited the people out from behind me on my phone, nice and easy. A lot of my photos from hikes are quick selfies I take, then I have my lunch at the top and leave.

There is no right to take a picture composed to your satisfaction on a hill. You don’t own the hill for any length of time . If your photo is impacting other people you are in the wrong and should not be taking a photo

There was a substantial cairn built between 1826 and 1842. It ceased to be an official trig point in 1937 as the (then-new) Clough William-Ellis building got in the way. The official trig point is now the concrete one on Garnedd Ugain. The old cairn was pretty much gone by the 1960s and was rebuilt in 1961. The brass toposcope (what everyone on this thread has been referring to as the "trig point") and the steps onto the cairn were added in 2001.

Not only that, you can get some perfectly good pictures while stood on the bedrock.

There was a queue when I climbed it 16 years ago, not as long but if you wanted to touch the top trig you queue - difference is no smartphones and visibility under 5m!