UKH

How long would you be willing to queue to get that perfect selfie on the summit of Snowdon? Looks like these people were willing to wait a good half hour, possible more. A couple of bouncers need to be stationed on the top to stop those pesky queue jumpers though...

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/walkers-snowdon-summit-st...

Queue? Selfie? 

In nice weather, I'd be more than happy to hang around on the top of Snowdon for thirty minutes or so.

Earlier in the week the was a post highlighting this story. 
 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/hill_talk/fracas_on_snowdon-724335

But I’ve never queued to get to the summit. Twice I’ve been there when there was no queue. A few times I’ve not bothered to join a queue. I think the first time I went it was January and decided against risking the steps, the second time it was busy but no queue. After that I can’t recall whether I went to the top or not. 
 

Once I ran up the Lamberis Path but the wind a clogwyn had me on my hands and knees and the top was covered in so much cloud I decided to call it a day and ran back down. Quite funny all the people I’d passed on the way up who were amazed how quickly I must have got to the top. 

I asked the same question of the forum last week ie "coming from the Watkin path would you walk down the  Llanberis path to join a queue.  Nobody answered that just lots of "queue WTF"

Me to, but not whilst standing in a queue...

There’s just one queue to go up one set of steps and back down the other set. There aren’t several sets of steps depending what route you’ve taken to the cafe. 
 

So yes. If you want to go up the steps you have to join the end of the queue for the steps. The queue isn’t formed just of people who’ve come up from Lamberis. Hypothetically, if the queue went all the way up the mountain from Lamberis, then you’d have to walk all the way down to Lamberis and queue, unless they created a large seating area where you take a ticket and wait for your number to be called. 
 

Or maybe some Alton Tower barrier type system. 

Maybe the solution is to rename some of the nearby mountains as Snowdon too to share the load a bit. 

You could even have them in different parts of the UK to reduce traffic congestion.

I think that the people who built the two tidy stepped paths to the summit trig point with its narrow platform didn't appreciate that in busy conditions lengthy queuing would result.

Well, it does and what can be done? Nothing seems to me to be the unsatisfying best alternative out of many crap options.

Perhaps stop being a sad, pouting  selfie addict and get a life?

Maybe Snowdon just needs a much bigger summit area! Build out the existing pile of stones and put 5 identical trig points on top, each with its own set of stairs up and down so more people can summit at once. Install a midge farm on the roof of the station too, that'll stop crowds hanging round for too long on nice days.

Tbh I think last time I was up Snowdon I didn't bother going to the trig point itself because it was so busy I couldn't face it! (and that was pre-covid!) 

i've been thinking for some time that Aran Fawddwy ought to be a three thousander.

What if some geoengineers simulated a mini earthquake in the Bala area and leaked the news to the tabloids that a rogue bit of creasing in the earth's crust meant that AF was now by a few metres the highest mountain in Wales.. 

That would certainly add to the challenge of the Welsh 3000ers. We shall build a cairn, 30' high...

Yes, it would sort out the sheep from the goats..........

They already have to a certain extent.  At least they are on Snowdon.

Queue?

If I could even be bothered to take a selfie then I'd just walk up the rocks to one side and claim I was doing a new route or a variation.  End of story I think.

Seems a bit of an elitist mentality. Snowdon seems like a stroll to people on here but for a whole range of people it can feel like a real achievement. No reason to belittle them just for wanting to take a picture on the top. I'm sure the first time you went up a mountain you were pretty chuffed with yourself, I know I was

My brother (who, like the rest of my family, has no interest in climbing or hills) walked up Snowden a few years ago with some work friends. Pretty cool, no judgement there, it's great to hear about people getting out into the hills for the first time.

The self-aggrandising Facebook posts about 'conquering Snowdon' that followed were less cool. What's the obsession with bigging oneself up on social media doing something entirely unremarkable? People need to just go and do stuff and enjoy it for the experience had, and stop caring about what other people think of it. Contentment comes from the self - not from trying to convince your mates that you're well 'ard because you walked up a hill.

I don't see elitism in this thread - I see frustration at the modern mindset of posing.

Indeed, especially when I was a kid (and much less fit than now; I was a 2000s "stay in and use the computer" kid in the 80s/90s )

If you don't like the tourists on Snowdon, just go walk up something else.  There's no shortage of other mountains.  TBH I like going up there once in a while, it is nice to have a coffee on top with a bit of the feel of a "rifugio" on top of a mountain in Italy or something (now it's been redone; the old cafe had all the atmosphere of a 1980s cross channel ferry, including the engine noise from the gennies).

Not belittling anyone at all. It's just the mindset that it's only worthwhile if the evidence is put up on social media with their faces prominent (will no-one believe them otherwise?). My first mountain was The Calf in 1974 when I was 14 and I took a photo of my friend by the trig. I was quite satisfied with that and pretty much anyone else wasn't arsed one way or t'other. People who queue for summit selfies need to get a bloody life like everyone else in thrall to their phone.

Didn't Hugh Grant try something similar? Also tried for real on Ben Lawers I believe?

Isn’t it your attitude rather than theirs? I post things I’ve done on Facebook, not to show how hard I am, but maybe to inspire others and to remind them I’m still alive even if I can’t see all them all of the time. It’s also interesting to see what my friends are up to.

If someone climbs Snowdon and thinks it’s an achievement, that’s their point of view, my point of view doesn’t really matter. It’s their adventure.

It’s a great tool. 

If anything it prompts other people like you to find harder challenges so you can boast on UKC social media that you find Snowdon easy. 
 

Snowdon*(!) - can't let that one get away hoping that no one notices!

To some getting to the top would be a great achievement but I agree.

I have never felt the need to take a photo of myself on a hill. I'm happy to have got to the top and enjoyed it for myself(or with anyone else I'd walked with). I don't understand the whole idea. I don't need a photo of myself - I was there. If I don't have a photo to show people will they not believe I have been there?

Posting selfies is the modern day equivalent of getting your photo album out and show everyone your holiday pictures, and we all know how great that was.

Dave

Excruciating! I've almost caused family ructions when I've gone glassy-eyed at yet one more picture of my mother/brother staring into the lens, often with a plate of food or glass of drink prominent. On the other hand, a lot of old family snaps are quite entertaining reminders of how awful our fashion sense was back when growing up. In the reverse situation, when I've shown some of my landscape type photos to family they just don't 'get' it. Why is that person standing on that rock not looking at the camera? Who is it? Don't they know you're taking their picture? To me, the figure is there to add some sense of scale to the shot not be the subject of the shot. I suppose it all boils down to what you want to record - the place or the person? What puts me at odds with the selfie-shooter is the narcissism element. The late, great Phil Lynott once said 'there's nothing wrong with a little bit of ego' (and he ought to have known). It gets things done. I've got photos of myself on various climbs on here so am not completely blameless with regards to posing. I definitely don't pout though - more a kind of anxious gurn?

You've taken me back about about 50 years, Lankyman! The times my late Mum got the album out to show me her photos of when she and my Stepdad went on their almost yearly holiday to Norway and almost everyone was somebody she had just met sitting in cafe, or on a bench, or in their car!!

Dave

Day1.

That's whoever drinking his lager at 6am in the airport 

That was our plane

And here's a picture of the beach....

That's the pool there

This is what we had for food

That's the bed.....

Look at the view from the balcony

Day 2. 

That's the beach from the other end

.......

My better half and I once visited friends in Lancashire (quite a bit older than us) who we didn't know very well, and over tea and cakes (served on the best china) talk turned to various hills they had climbed. We were duly handed a photo album which included quite a few pictures of said hills followed by a section showing their recent holiday in a nudist camp. We didn't know quite what to say and it turned into a bit of an Alan Bennett situation.

LoL FFS, the worlds gone mad. Fit an FLIR guided M61 cannon on the roof of the station and route the trigger to my lounge. Sorted.

Did they live in Heysham? There's a lovely little beach down there (ignoring the nuclear power stations). Apparently, it used to be a nudist beach. It's called Half Moon Bay.

No, further east. And I think the beach/camp in question was abroad - it's 20-odd years ago but I have a vague memory of seeing a picture of them sitting under a parasol drinking pina coladas or some such thing not usually encountered on Morecambe Bay.