The Boys' Brigade Mountaineering Club

Yr Wyddfa / Snowdon is the highest peak in Wales, the only one in Great Britain with a railway station and a café at its summit and the only one where you have to join a queue to get to the summit cairn! It has a classic pyramidic mountain shape with three steep-sided ridges emanating from its summit forming three deep cwms. It is, by far, the most visited summit in the UK, with walkers arriving in huge numbers each day and, in the summer, they are supplemented by an even greater number of tourists arriving by train.

English speakers sometimes say that Welsh has too many consonants, but W and Y are both vowels in Welsh. The mountain used to be known just by its English name, but everyone is now encouraged to use its Welsh name!

See its entries on Walkhighlands or Wikipedia or view it from above on Google Earth.

Snow comes from Snaw (Old English) and has the same meaning as it does in modern English. Don comes from Dún (Old English) which means Hill (similar to the Downs in Southern England. So, Snowdon simply means Snow Hill.

Yr is the definite article in Welsh (normally Y, but Yr before a vowel). Wyddfa comes from the Welsh noun Gwyddfa (with the G dropped as the feminine noun soft-mutates after the definite article). It could mean Prominence, Place of Honour, Height, Eminence, Throne, Seat, Mound, Burial-ground, Grave or Tumulus. It comes from Gŵydd meaning any of above and ma (soft-mutated to fa) which is a suffix that signifies a Place. Yr Wyddfa is most likely to be interpreted as The Prominent Place.  It has  commonly, and probably mistakenly, been interpreted as The Burial Place or Tumulus. In Welsh folklore, it is the place where the giant Rhitta Gawr is buried (under a cairn) after he was killed by King Arthur.