Wild Camping on Snowdon

Q. Hi all

Great website!

Can you help me? I am planning to take my daughter up Snowdon. We will be catching the train up as I would rather she enjoyed herself than suffer but we hope to walk down and spend a night wild camping.

Any advice?

Is it possible to leave the the car at Llanberris station overnight? - how much? how far down should we wild camp? .........Thanks

Andy Brown, Nottingham

A. We recently had gypsies on our work car park for 28 days until the police had the right to evict them so one night wild camping will be fine I'm sure. :)

Chris Perry, Runcorn

A. I can't help you with the camping but I can tell you that it still takes about 2 hours to walk down so it is still a bit of a trek. (Also the new cafe at the summit is not open yet [as of early April 2009]). "Pete's Eats" cafe in Llanberis does a mean breakfast and I think they have hostel accommodation and internet cafe.

Hope you sort out the wild camping

Cheers

Ian Millington, Chester

A. I had a lovely night with the most incredible sunrise just above Devil's kitchen. It can get a bit hairy up there though as 2 hours later the visibility was down to 10m

Si Curtis, So'ton

A. You are only allowed to camp in The Snowdonia National Park on designated campsites or on private land with the Land Owners' consent. Wild camping is not permitted by the park authority.

Further more, since Snowdon is the most climbed mountain in Wales (some sources suggest as many as 500,000 people a year reach the top) finding a secluded spot might be a little difficult.

Why not try The Berwyns (where virtually nobody goes and only half of which is within The Snowdonia National Park boundary) or one of the campsites along the A5 in the Ogwen valley - deep within the mountains and so basic it feels like wild camping.

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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