This document is a snapshot of content from a discontinued BBC website, originally published between 2002-2011. It has been made available for archival & research purposes only. Please see the foot of this document for Archive Terms of Use. 29 February 2012 Accessibility help Text only BBC Homepage Wales Home The first visitors Last updated: 27 November 2005 Frances Richardson from Capel Curig tells how more from this section restoring a church led to research on the early days of BBC Local Snowdon mountaineering in Snowdonia. Photo tour North West Wales Snowdon's name Things to do Summit strange The first visitors People & Places To the summit by train. Nature & Outdoors I'm a committee member of the Friends of St Julitta's Church in Capel Curig, one of the smallest of the old churches in History Archive clip Snowdonia and now disused. A group of us are in the process Plas y Brenin views Religion & Ethics of restoring it and in the churchyard we discovered a number Snowdon Race Arts & Culture of graves going back years of people who died in accidents. Fell-running Music Snowdon lily Nature reserve TV & Radio We were interested to know how many were climbing Three Peaks Race Local BBC Sites accidents. Various people researched this topic back to 1880 Snowdon farm News and gave a picture of some of the people, often from outside Webcam Useful links Sport the area, who had died whilst mountaineering in Snowdonia 360 degree panoramic Weather and were buried here. Travel interact The mountaineering scene got going in about 1770. There's a Neighbouring Sites Tell us about a web page Mid Wales very famous account by Pennant, who also had an illustrator with him who did some fantastic drawings which show what Found a web page we should know North East Wales about? Send us the details. the area was like back then. Pennant, of course, would have Email A Friend Related BBC Sites had a local guide - the early tourists wouldn't have ventured Wales onto the hills on their own without perhaps a shepherd who Cymru knew the hills well. Gogledd Orllewin related bbc.co.uk links As those who wrote the early books popularised visiting Hillary and Tenzing conquer Everest Snowdonia, climbing became a romantic thing to do and Great Outdoors: Climbing increasing numbers of locals supplemented their normal Hall of Fame: Jan Morris income by being guides for part of the year. related www links But things really took off with the development of hotels in Plas y Brenin website the area and, most importantly, with the building of roads Pen-y-Gwryd website through Snowdonia. Two hundred years ago there wasn't a single road to Capel Curig - you could only get there on foot more from North West or horseback. So tourism could only really open up with the Wales building of the road. Towns & Villages The first tourists to the area were people interested in botany Your patch who came to see the rare Alpine plants in Snowdonia. Often Have your say or find out people from Oxbridge came up for a long stay and would more about community life hold reading parties and go on expeditions into the hills. past and present. Others came to admire the views and to go fishing. Entertainment Days and nights out And so the real interest in mountaineering as a separate Find events for all ages, sport developed in the mid 19th century amongst those who indoors and out, all year would go to the Alps in the summer, but would come to round. Snowdonia in the winter to practise. Your Say Talking points Then in the 1880s people began to discover the cliffs and Share your views, gripes rock climbing. After first wanting just to practise getting up a and passions and make your voice heard. mountain by the most difficult route in preparation for the Alps, they quickly saw the cliffs as things to climb in themselves and rock climbing became a separate sport. They also used the area for practice for climbing in the Himalayas. The whole of Edmund Hillary's expedition came to Helyg in the Ogwen Valley to practise and test equipment Sardinia: Cymry yn used in the 1953 Everest climb. 'ddiogel' Pontio: Dim prif A previous party of Swiss climbers had failed in their attempt weithredwr to climb Everest due to problems with oxygen, so Hillary's team carried out training to test new equipment at Helyg. There are signatures of all those involved on the ceiling of the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel bar and there's an annual reunion of the 1953 party there, though the numbers are dwindling. A few local people were involved in that expedition. John Jackson, who went on to be the chief instructor at the National Mountaineering Centre at Plas y Brenin was a reserve on the 1953 expedition and Charles Evans, who came to live in Capel Curig in the 1950s, was part of the Everest team. We had an exhibition in the church last year about 200 years of mountaineering in Snowdonia. Lots of people who came remembered the opening of Plas y Brenin in 1953 and sent in photographs of their first camping expeditions and climbs. The fact that they'd kept those photos for so many years showed how much coming to Snowdonia, and learning how to enjoy themselves safely in the mountains, meant to them. A lot of people involved in mountaineering aren't local to the area, which is part of the reason why Snowdonia is a National Park - there for the nation's enjoyment. your comments John S Thomas from Oklahoma, USA My father's great grandfather was Morris Williams from Capel Curig. The family left Wales for America in 1846. A couple of years ago one of my cousins ran across an article about an enterprising young man, Morris Williams, back in the 1830s who opened a refreshment stand on the trail to the Mount Snowdon summit. Does anyone remember the article or have information concerning this bit of Snowdon history? Fri Jun 12 14:13:01 2009 Walter Bateson from Rotorua NZ I have read your article and distinct memories flood back into my mind. Whilst my slides of the mountains have long ago faded, my memory is still bright and your help in keeping me in touch with both Wales and its mountains is so wonderful. Maybe some old member of the Oldham Technical College Mountaineering Club will read and communicate. Fri Jun 12 10:00:16 2009 Harvey Lloyd, Nant Gwynant & Oxford Another interesting link with Everest and Snowdonia is in the Churchyard in Capel Curig. Edmund Wigram is buried there - he died in a climbing accident in Cwm Idwal in 1945. In 1935 & 1936 he was a member of the Mount Everest reconnaissance expeditions and his sherpa was Sherpa Tensing, the sherpa who made it to the top with Hillary. Tue Jan 15 12:08:16 2008 Walter Bateson now living in Rotorua NZ Your article brings back many memories for me of climbing the mountains of Snowdonia. I was a member of the Oldham Technical College Mountaineering Club. We would regularly meet in this area and hire a club hut. Then I introduced my young son and we would spend weekends in hostels. Tue Jan 15 09:25:47 2008 Nancy from the USA What an informative article. Very good to see that the chapel is being rebuilt. This is so unlike we Americans who tear down the old and build new every 10 years.I hope to one day visit this area as my Gram was born in Wales. I have seen the sreet where she lived as a child in Morriston.We are visiting again in August 2006. Fri Nov 11 12:28:47 2005 John Morris Williams, Porthmadog (Thailand) It is a nice thought that the old chapel is being rebuilt and the cemetary itself is being restored to remember the fallen. There is a History long gone on those mountains, climbing was here when the British were evading the Romans on Snowdonia. Thank you. Fri Nov 11 02:33:42 2005.