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?

Definitely a good idea to have a "quick" queue. A "3 seconds or less" one with no posing allowed - if you can do a selfie without stopping that's fine. Anyone who is going to take their time getting the right shot should definitely queue.

In recent years when travelling I get so annoyed with people more concerned about posing for photos than just actually look g at what’s around them!
I went to Yosemite a few years ago, amazing, but people just standing about for ages posing for photos infront of waterfalls and lakes and meanwhile if you want to just stand there and take in the view you’re shooed out the way. Me and DH were standing admiring a lake and a woman came up and asked us to move out the way so she could have a photo, after she’d done it she said it was OK for us to go back to viewing the lake where we were previously.

So no, I wouldn’t be queueing for an hour to admire the view from the trig point because people are obsessed with their Instagram photos. How many people would be up there if photos were banned like in museums?

Maybe they could get a large canvas photo backdrop of the view at the cafe for the Instagram wankers to pose in front of. Then they would get a good picture no matter the weather.

they need to get one of those big frame things near by with ‘love from Snowdon’ or some such nonsense and the insta idiots will flock there instead.

Probably the same weirdos who queue in line at a pub bar and tut if anyone goes straight up to the bar.

The steps were only put in to make the top of the cairn and the ‘trig point’ accessible to people with limited mobility. There is no need to use them, you can easily walk/scramble up the side and avoid the steps.

I would go so far as to say that anyone who takes Crib Goch or the Watkin is duty bound to skip the queue.

Good grief! How ridiculous. Why on earth do people bother going there if it's that crowded? That's definitely going on my list of places to be avoided!

Well, I’ve been running in the mountains since the early 90s and always touched trig points. I used to to do an annual run over Tryfan, the Glyders and then round the horseshoe back to Pen-Y-Pass and we always slapped every trig on the way (and did the leap between Adam and Eve). Any photos would have been a quick snap with an instamatic but I don’t recall anyone bothering.

I've been fell running since before social media was a thing, so I can very confidently say that this just isn't true. Basically, touching the summit trig/cairn/whatever is the generally accepted measure amongst people who climb mountains a lot as to whether you've actually been to the top of a given mountain. Otherwise you've just been in the general vicinity of the top. Hillary and Tensing couldn't have sacked off the Hillary Step and said 'well we're near enough, we've climbed to well over 8000m so another 50 is neither here nor there'.

Edit: apologies, I now realise I've said exactly the same as the poster above me!

Catch yourself on!

So Joe Brown and George Band "DIDNT" climb Kangchenjunga in 1955 because they stopped a few feet from the summit out of respect for local religions?

Yeah right!

A trig point is a COMPLETELY HUMAN MANUFACTURED ARTIFICIAL ADDITION to a mountain.

By your theory "to bag the peak" you must actually do a tap dance on the crucifix on top of Carantouhill or play chess on the cross on the Zugspitz.

And don't get me started on summit cairns!!

Queuing for photos is asocial madness and needs to stop. Not just on Snowdon but everywhere. The world doesn't exist so that Instagram can harvest your data and other people aren't obstructions on the photos that enable said harvesting.

There are better mountains in Eryri. Yr Wyddfa is often regarded as the ‘sacrificial mountain’. In the sense that all the tourists go there… they are encouraged to do so! It keeps the other mountains clear for people to enjoy.

I think if you want a picture at the top then you should queue but if you are happy to go to the top, take it in and turn around you can skip it! I think this thread opens up the bigger discussion of how frustrating it is watching people have a need to photograph and video everything in a perfect way. Watching reeling in the years from years ago and not a phone or camera in sight. Bring it back!!!!

Exactly!

If touching the trig point matters to you, fair enough (although how do you cope with mountains without a trig point?), just join the queue of people who also care about the trig point.

I would walk past the wannabe influencers without a moment's hesitation, and laugh at any remarks.

Absolutely awful, elitist, snobbish post. The outdoors is for everyone, and as a person who lives at the foot of Yr Wyddfa, I hope people on a budget- which is who you're referring to, according to your B&M, Lonsdale, Sports Direct comments- feel that the countryside is for them, as well as for the well off. And whilst I agree with you on the horrors of the rubbish and human excrement left on the mountains by tourists, the well off do this too, and have done for many many years.
There is a real problem with access to the outdoors and nature in areas where there is a hugh percentage of poverty. So many social structures telling poor people that nature doesn't belong to them. Stop reinforcing stereotypes about people, it's very harmful.

There's always one... 🙄

Surely not all those taking photos are using them for social media?

LOL.... That was brilliant!

but you did forget to give Thanks and praise to the indigenous peoples of Eyri, (the Ordovices and the Deceangli), whose tribes peacefully roamed and managed the land before it was "discovered" by Imperalist Climbers from Runcorn in the 1950's. To this day these First Nation tribes remain a marginalised group and when intersected with "people who identify" as Slate Miner's (Peace be upon them) you can see that consistent access to decent Climbing Pro is still a problem for these poor people (Shhhuuusssh! These poor unfortunate souls don't even know what a Number 4 Wall Nut looks like!)

I'm planning a protest next Saturday outside the old Pete's Eat's. It's never been the same since they got ride of The Big Jim and dropped the 10% discount for locals who could trace their blood line back to the Ordovices or at least to Sid James - I believe he fathered a fair few kids when he was filming "Up the Khyber" in 1968.

This. Couldn't agree more.

The snobbishness and elitism as illustrated by that mountain guide post can take a running jump (and they can take their rubbish with them as well). I have come across these types who brag about their achievements trying to outdo each other like it is a pissing contest. Pathetic.

Because some of us have been hiking up and down mountains since before the Insta crowd were born and we've had decades of touching the trig points and even taking quick photos without any significant queuing or expectations about clearing space for other people's selfie.

Then they come along thinking that they invented hiking and causing the queues by endless faffing around for photos. Like everywhere else they do this. If they could enjoy the day out without making it into such a performance it would be fine.

If you’ve climbed a mountain you touch the trig point - you just do! The only reasons there are queues on this mountain is because of those getting the train up. I’ve climbed loads of mountains and it isn’t a thing that people move out of the way so others can have a posed photo. It would be rude to ask. I intend on climbing Snowdon in a couple of weeks and there is no way I’m standing in a queue when I get to the top.

Instagram has ruined so many beautiful places.

You would really have been "damn disapppointed" to not touch a trig point as a child? You sound like a....unique child. When i climbed stuff with my parents as a child we were happy when we reached the top, kids only know there's a magic special spot you have to touch if the adults make it a big deal.

As a pp has pointed out, the trig point on yr wyddfa isnt even natural - the concrete cairn and marker have been added very recently (1960s and 2000s). For 99.9% of the mountain's history the summit WAS the trig point.

Yet now the park staff have added a gold plate you "have" to touch it or the whole walk is ruined. You cant hear how ridiculous that sounds yet you have the temerity to mock others?

.

I also agree.

I feel sorry for anyone who ends up with them as their guide. What a bellend.