Beauty spot selfies 'adding to mountain pressures'

About 600,000 people climb Yr Wyddfa annually, while others take the train

Beauty spot selfies are tempting more people to take on challenging routes of Wales' tallest mountain, according to a national park official.

Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team said a rising trend of callouts at Yr Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon, could become unsustainable.

Volunteers were sent to seven incidents in a single day during this summer.

Angela Jones, from Eryri National Park, also known as Snowdonia, said "social media has caused over capacity" at popular locations leading to issues including erosion, as well as pressure on car parks and rescue services.

"Social media certainly encourages people to go to different areas... or to try certain things that maybe they wouldn't have just thought about themselves," she added.

About 600,000 people climb the peak annually with the wider park seeing an influx since the Covid pandemic.

Llanberis MRT and its 60 volunteers believe 2023 is "shaping up to be the busiest year on record".

It has seen a rise of about 18% in the first eight months of this year compared with the same period last year.

In 2022 it became the busiest mountain rescue service in the UK.

"At the moment we can deal with it, just about," said Gruff Owen, the rescue organisation's deputy chairman.

Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team says 2023 is "shaping up to be the busiest year on record"

"But there may come a time when we don't have enough team members to send to a serious incident because we are already dealing with a serious incident."

When he joined the team 15 years ago, Llanberis MRT dealt with an excess of 80 callouts annually.

There have already been 182 rescues so far this year compared with 155 in the first eight months of 2022.

Ms Jones, partnership manager for the national park, said she had spoken to Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation and Aberglaslyn Mountain Rescue Team about their concerns.

She said photographs Yr Wyddfa's waterfalls or pools shared on Instagram and TikTok did not tell the whole story as locations along the Watkin Path in particular could be "extremely challenging".

"We've seen a tremendous increase of visitors to that area which has put huge, huge pressures on the local community, on the car parking capacity in the area, and actually now on the waterfalls themselves and on the quality of water in the river.

"And there's erosion all along the pathway and along the waterfalls there, because they are actually off the official path," she said.

"I've spoken to people myself who have driven all the way from London just to have a photograph taken in the Watkin's pools."

She added: "There are instances where purely social media has caused-over capacity at areas which, of course, puts pressure on all of the services, including the mountain rescue teams."

Mountaign rescuers want to make visitors more aware of the need to plan routes and to be properly prepared before heading out

Ms Jones advised people to consider the implications of sharing particular scenes online because it could "encourage other people to follow you to those areas which can't necessarily cope with that capacity, or people... who don't have the same capabilities as you going into areas which may be really challenging for them".

Mr Owen said he and colleagues were also trying to make visitors more aware of the need to plan their routes and to be properly prepared before heading into the mountains.

The rescue team, which is funded by donations, is in the process of buying another rescue vehicle.

It also hopes to relocate from its base at a former chapel in Nant Peris to cope with demand.

"It takes money and resources to manage a bigger team," he said.

"A couple of weeks ago we were attending seven different incidents, all at the same time, so, for a small building and a small team, that's really difficult."