The Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel, at the junction of the Llanberis Pass and Nantgwynant, was the training base for the 1953 British Everest expedition. The bar ceiling still bears the signatures of Hillary, Tenzing, and the team members, written in the immediate aftermath of the summit. The hotel is unchanged in its essentials from that period and makes no apology for it. This is Experience #53 of the Snowdonia 100.
History
The PYG (as it is universally known) was used by John Hunt's team in spring 1953 to acclimatise and rehearse on the Snowdon ridges before the expedition departed for Nepal. On their return, the team reunited here and signed the bar ceiling. The boot room, the bar, the dining room — all are substantially as they were in the 1950s, a preservation not of nostalgia but of indifference to fashion that has resulted in something genuinely irreplaceable.
| Location | A498/A4086 junction, Pen-y-Pass area |
| Accommodation | Traditional rooms — book well ahead |
| Bar | Open to non-residents at limited times — check website |
| Dinner | Traditional menu, guests only in the evenings |
Staying Here
The hotel offers accommodation in its original rooms — no WiFi, communal bathrooms in some cases, traditional dinners served at set times. The sauna dates from the 1970s; the pool from a similar period. For walkers and climbers who value authenticity over comfort, there is nowhere quite like it in Britain. The landscape immediately outside — the Snowdon Horseshoe, Crib Goch, the Glyderau — was used as training ground by the Everest team. That connection is alive here in a way that plaques and interpretive panels cannot achieve.
Experience #53 of 100 — Food and Drink category.
Independently written — Snowdon.com