Experienced mountain leader Gemma Smith has given her honest verdict on queuing at the Yr Wyddfa summit after charity fundraisers were booed for jumping the line09:49, 02 Jun 2026A seasoned mountain leader has shared her views on whether climbers and hikers should queue when visiting the summit of Yr Wyddfa, known as Mount Snowdon. Since the coronavirus pandemic and the meteoric rise of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, interest in British beauty spots has skyrocketed.‌As visitors reach the peak hoping to snap the perfect selfie to commemorate their journey, queuing has become increasingly commonplace - particularly during fine weather or busy periods on the North Wales mountain.‌The debate was thrust into the spotlight when Lincolnshire hospitality manager Richard Thiedeman hiked to the summit of Yr Wyddfa on May 24, only to be booed by those in line after he failed to observe the unwritten 'rules' of waiting his turn to touch the summit marker and pose for a photograph.‌What many of those who booed him may not have known is that he was tackling the three peaks challenge, where participants attempt to scale the highest mountains in Scotland, England, and Wales, within a strict 24 hour time frame, to raise money for their friends funeral.While many people may have seen footage of climbers queuing to reach the top of Mount Everest in Nepal and assume it is standard practice, experienced mountain leader Gemma Smith insists this is far from the truth.The expert mountain leader and hiking guide offered her frank opinion on whether people should be forming queues to reach the summit of Yr Wyddfa, following the incident involving Richard. She said: "This might be controversial but as a mountain leader I do not think you should be queuing to get to the summit of a mountain unless it is for safety reasons. So I've been a mountain leader for about 10 years now and guiding people on Snowdon is something that is a big part of my job.‌"I've been climbing Snowdon and in that range for decades, at this point from being quite a small child. The queue for the summit of Snowdon has only really started since about Covid years, the latter Covid years when more and more people were coming and it kind of has come about because people want like their perfect summit selfie.Content cannot be displayed without consent"So people are getting really irate if other people are in the background of it and things like that but unlike mountains like Everest where you know it's very well publicised like the queues on Everest and on Everest like the queuing is there for safety reasons, it's because you're following a fixed line.‌"You're one behind the other on this line and if you are overtaking that can be an exceptionally dangerous situation if you slip, all this multitude of reasons. On Snowdon that queue is purely there because people want to take a photo, that's it."For hundreds and hundreds of years people have climbed that mountain without needing to queue and this might sound controversial, but you do not need to stand in that queue to touch the summit cairn on Snowdon."Now some of you might be a bit upset by that, might be like well I stood in the queue for an hour, it's good etiquette to stand in the queue... there is absolutely no reason for that queue to need to be there in the first place.Article continues below"That summit cairn area is big enough for people to come, people to go, people to take their photos, people have been taking photos on that summit cairn for decades and years before the whole we've got to stand in a queue to get our summit photo kind of took place."So if you're one of those people that is complaining about people skipping a queue to touch the top of a mountain, I really would encourage you to think twice about why you're standing in that queue to begin with and if there is even a need for there to be a queue there altogether."