Camping near Snowdon

Q. Hi all at go4awalk.com, firstly can I say that this site is brilliant. After spending an hour on the web searching for a particular walk, I logged onto your site by accident and found the walk in minutes.

Me and my partner are going to attempt to walk gw134 Mount Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) avoiding Crib Goch from Pen-y-Pass

this summer and we were hoping to put all our camping equipment to good use, are there any camp sites local to the 'Pyg Track'?

If so could you forward us their email address / web site address or phone numbers.

Kind Regards

Wendy Hughes

A. Lots of sites off the Llanberis pass road long before getting to Llanberis itself.

Best is on left going down at Ynys Ettws. Used to be £1 a night but I haven't been there for a few years.

No facilities!

David Williams, Witney Oxon

A. The nearest 'place' to Pen y Pass is Llanberis or Nant Peris - try google for a camp site there. Failing that there is on on the South side of the A5 East of Llyn Ogwen though I don't know what it is called - it is pretty basic though.

Hope this helps

Mike (Editor)

A. Wild Camping and The Law in England, Scotland and Wales.

Tents cannot be pitched just anywhere because every piece of Britain is owned by some individual or some organisation and according to the strict letter of the law permission must be obtained prior to pitching tent and camping.

In practice however, this is often impractical and wild camping is usually tolerated in the more remote areas - typically, more than half a day's walk from an official campsite or other accommodation providing you:

Keep groups small
Camp as unobtrusively as possible
Leave camp as you found it
Remove all litter (even other people's)
Carry out everything you carried in
Carry out tampons and sanitary towels (burying them doesn't work as animals dig them up again)
Choose a dry pitch rather than digging drainage ditches around a tent or moving boulders
Toilet duties should be performed 30m (100ft) from water and the results buried using a trowel
At all time, help preserve the environment
And if you are in any doubt about what you're doing, find out more

In Scotland, the current access legislation (which came into effect in early 2005) is explicit about your right to wild camp on hill land. However, there are exceptions. Since March 2011 you are not permitted to wild camp between Dryman and Rowardennan on the shore of Loch Lomond. See Loch Lomond Wild Camping Ban for more information.

There appears to be an exception to this with respect to camping in Dartmoor National Park where the right to wild camping is actually enshrined in the National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act, 1949 amendment Dartmoor Commons Act, 1985 - see Wild Camping in the UK for more details.

For the definitive answer with respect to wild camping in Scotland see the answer supplied by the Scottish Natural Heritage

For a few (tongue in cheek) tips on wild camping see Some Wild Camping Tips.

NB. go4awalk.com cannot offer any advice on suitable locations for wild camping - but click here for walks from exisiting campsites.

Hope this helps

Mike (Editor)

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