We’ll meet in the evening in Llanberis, the popular village at the foot of Snowdon, and get ready for our trek. We’ll have a late energy-fuelling dinner and a full briefing, switch on our head-torches, and set off on our exciting night challenge!

We follow the Llanberis Path, which roughly shadows the route of the famous Snowdon Mountain Railway. It’s the most gradual route up Snowdon with good conditions underfoot, and therefore best suited to our ascent in the dark! There is an initial steep section; after this our route continues quite gradually. The path shows up quite easily most of the time under the torchlight.

Trekking up at night is a very different experience than during the day; our senses grow used to the darkness and we can enjoy the silence and the remoteness, and the views of the night sky arcing above us. 

After the Halfway House the gradient becomes steeper in places, but we know we’re not far off the summit! We pass through a narrow railway bridge, and it’s not long before we get to a standing stone, marking where other trails meet ours. A little further on we come to the summit at 1085m. We have gained approx 900m in height since we set off – quite an achievement!

After some time to experience the summit – though it will probably be quite cold at the top, so you may not want to linger too long! – we start our descent and return to Llanberis the same way. The sky will start to lighten on our way down, and we may be able to enjoy the wonderful views over the Menai Strait towards Anglesey while we are still high enough to enjoy them. 

As the sun rises and lights up our surroundings, we’ll be amazed by what we climbed in the dark! The descent will be much quicker and less arduous, but still tiring and can be hard on the knees. We return to Llanberis for a big celebration breakfast! After saying our farewells to our fellow trekkers, we head home, tired but very elated!

Ascent approx. 5-7 hours; descent approx. 2-3 hours