Completing winter hikes is a walker's upgrade, making a foray into the realm of hardcore hiker, even mountaineer.
It's a bigger challenge than hiking in summer on all fronts, physical, mental, and requires sharper navigational skills. Winter hillwalking also demands additional kit too.
Up for the challenge? Of course you are. , and to provide you with a starting point, here are a handful of our favourite winter hillwalks in the UK.
1. Yr Wyddfa’s (Snowdon) South Ridge, Eryri (Snowdonia)
There is no finer sight to behold, possibly in the whole of Britain, than Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) in winter attire – she’s beautiful. There’s one route that truly celebrates this fact, concentrating solely on Wales’ highest rather than seeking pleasure amongst the other very distracting peaks, and that is an ascent of the South Ridge.
If you look at Yr Wyddfa on a map, you can’t help but notice the pleasingly direct nature of the South Ridge and the way that it drops down the map like a stone down a well. That part of the day, up from Bwlch-Cwm Llan climbing steadily northwards (you can, of course, walk this route in either direction) is grand, especially when you take a peek at Cwm Tregalan to your east.
A finer, more steeply sided valley you’d struggle to find, and it’s also around that which the descent path (the Watkin) snakes. But the day deserves a red letter when you move from the South Ridge to its upper Bwlch Main section.
Here, and especially in winter, north Wales confuses itself with the Alps. Depending upon snow conditions, the way along that mountain’s fin is excitingly comfortable. You can wear your best undies and know you’ll not ruin them, but you need to be switched on.
On the final ascent, the summit, crowned by the brutalist structure that is the summit station, hopefully bathes in pale sunlight, wanting you to reach its (closed for the season) winter façade. You’re not very often alone on this peak and there’s a beauty to that – you appreciate other people more in winter.
The Watkin Path takes you down to Bwlch y Saethau and it’s here that you’ll realise the other reason for a clockwise ascent; you walk towards the jagged, again Alpine-like high points of Y Lliwedd and they make a truly phenomenal sight. True to the day though, you ignore them and descend into the ever softening snow.
2. The Newlands Round, Lake District
Love and hate – two emotions I always feel when I walk a route that involves the walker’s cliché that is Cat Bells. I hate myself because I love it so much, and being an experienced walker I should be snobby about it, but I can’t. Do it in winter though, as part of the Newlands Round, and you’ll only feel love, because this is one winter banger of a route.
The Newlands Round is one of the Lake District’s rites of passage for any aspiring hillwalker. Consisting of the already mentioned Cat Bells, it skylines inevitably I suppose, taking in Dale Head at the horseshoe’s head before ending, or starting on (it’s as good either way), Hindscarth and High Crags.
The great thing about the route is that you ascend Cat Bells from behind, out and back from the south, that way getting the hugely stunning reveal northwards at its summit over Derwent Water, the town of Keswick and the more distant fells of Skiddaw and Blencathra.
Add snow to this classic Lakeland view and you’re seeing mountains fit for a calendar. I guarantee, if you’ve done the walk in an anticlockwise direction and you’re ending on this peak, then getting to one of those cosy, twinkly-looking pubs for a steaming hot meal and drink will be an inevitability.
But we’re ahead of ourselves. There is much, much more to this walk than ‘feline tinklings’ (Cat Bells for those of a slow cognitive ability). There’s the daddy of the route, the head of the table, none other than Dale Head. It’s the highest point in the walk at 753m, head and shoulders above Hindscarth.
It’s those views northwards, in winter, that get you. The ground drops steeply away in front, letting you see straight down into the upper reaches of the valley. It’s a long one and consequently, from here you feel a long way from civilisation, more so given an icing of the white stuff.
Then, if you look north-eastwards to the crags of High Spy, you’ll feel that rush of pride as you realise being a winter mountain walker really is something to be proud of.
3. Pen y Fan (from the north), Brecon Beacons
Pen y Fan is one of the most summited mountains in Britain, and for good reason. It’s a corker, one that links to a necklace of other peaks to provide the adventurous walker with a multitude of options. Come winter and a dress code change for the mountains to one of formal white, then Pen y Fan as the highest in south Wales wears it best.
Plus, there’s something about the horizontally striated northern faces of these old red sandstone mountains that suits the snow. Or is it that the snow suits them? Whichever way round, they look good, with their normally shadowy steepenings barcoded with light and dark stripes as the snow, then rock, take it in turns to shine.
Pen y Fan was made for winter and, as always, the more popular hills are best tackled out of the main tourist season, making winter ideal.
Pen y Fan from the north is one of the quieter approaches to the mountain, and when combined with an ascent of Cribyn offers a compact horseshoe route of classic proportions. The strength of the walk is all about the views over to Pen y Fan’s north-east face from the subsidiary ridge of Cribyn, known as Bryn Teg.
The valley of Cwm Sere separates the two peaks, the headwall of which rises to the col between them, where views both downwards and over to Pen y Fan reward greatly. Pen y Fan from many angles has a flat, square shape to its summit crown. Many times we’ve been lucky enough to see it snow-covered against a steely blue winter sky.
If the pyramidal summit of Cribyn isn’t enough for you in snowy conditions, then an ascent of the Himalayanlooking Craig Cwm Sere ridge of Pen y Fan will be. Close to the top, views back to Cribyn are crazy good and we’ve shot several Trail front covers there. Pen y Fan in winter conditions is experiencing the mountain at its best.
4. Scafell Pike via Hollow Stones, Lake District
The Lake District’s highest peak, Scafell Pike, is a different beast come the winter. If you want the ultimate in bragging rights, then a snowy ascent of this complicatedly subtle Lakeland giant is the one for you.
What’s more, you don’t have to try to be clever about the route choice: Hollow Stones from Wasdale will blow your socks off (though be sure to put them back on, it being cold out and all that).
It’s almost a case of where do you start when considering this walk’s potential. But let’s start with the obvious – all the mountains you know so well from your summer visits to the Lakes now look like they’ve been caught in the act of playing at being real mountains, all the tourists having departed long ago.
Looking west to Wast Water from Brown Tongue will make your eyeballs pop. How about passing Hollow Stones and gazing up into Scafell Crag, Mickledore and Pikes Crag, which form a right-angle of some of the most haunting mountain architecture going?
Then there’s the climb up from Lingmell Col, a stairway to heaven, while coming back the same way you’ll be looking out at Great Gable’s best bits. At the summit, in winter you’ll feel a long way from anywhere, even though you’re not. This central core of the Lakes is a complicated knot of rock that once cloaked in white shows its enormity.
If that’s not enough, an ascent of Lingmell from the col is one of the Lakes’ most underrated hills, its east face towering over the gut wrenchingly deep trench of Piers Gill. At the summit of Lingmell all you have to do is turn around and look back to Scafell Pike. And there it is; England’s highest mountain, just for you, in its finest threads.
The walk down the west ridge of Lingmell is a dream, where you’ll once again face those Wasdale views. Then, get this, there’s an excellent pub right at the end of the walk. Winter Lakeland perfection personified.
5. Y Garn and Devil’s Kitchen, Eryri (Snowdonia)
Let’s pretend that winter just keeps on giving. You’ve started to tick-off classic walks when your mind turns towards Eryri. It’s got to be the Ogwen Valley that your thoughts lock onto, and none more so than an ascent of that guardian peak Y Garn.
Y Garn’s advantage over the other mountains in the area is where it sits, on the outside of a 90° bend in the valley. An ascent of the mountain’s north-north-east ridge in winter changes what is an epic walk in summer into a challengingly exciting adventure. Steeper lower down, the ridge sorts itself out and becomes more defined the higher you go.
It’s on the top section that the mountain’s strategic location starts to become truly obvious. Looking east you see the mighty terrier of a mountain that is Tryfan in profile. Covered in snow, this is one epic sight, the craggy nature of the hill allowing rock to protrude, denying the snow’s unifying intentions.
Then, if you turn your head to the north you see up the valley towards the coast – the Carneddau on the right and the northern Glyderau outliers on the left.
Add into this spectacle the very real chance of a jet flying low through the crisp winter air, heading straight towards you, then banking steeply beneath as it follows the valley, and you might just struggle to contain yourself. This route up this mountain is awesome.
Here’s the rub, and it’s a good one – you get to descend into Devil’s Kitchen. In summer, this is a nice thing to do, but in winter this can be a pleasantly tricky and technical path to follow.
Steep steps, patches of ice, they all keep you on the tips of your crampons. The annoying thing about this descent is that while you must look where you’re going, the views over Llyn Idwal and the Carneddau’s Pen yr Ole Wen are such that you’ll be torn between safety and having your breath taken away.
Compact, and exciting in a number of ways, this one’s a classic for short winter days.
6. Ben Nevis and the CMD Arête, West Highlands
There is no greater prize in Britain for the winter walker than an ascent of Ben Nevis via its CMD Arête. Ben Nevis stands at 1345m and, as we all know, is the highest in the land, which means it attracts walkers like wasps to an open jam jar.
As a result, the world-renowned north face of ‘The Ben’ is a winter climbing crucible, when at the summit you’re just as likely to bump into a heroic looking climber as you are a cool eyed winter walker. Winter walking, especially over technical ground like the CMD, is essentially winter mountaineering, so feel free to look those climbers squarely in the eyes.
Ben Nevis towers over the busy Highland town of Fort William, but it’s the North Face Car Park where the day starts. To be clear, this walk actually requires you starting before the day does, in darkness, and it’ll end the same way.
A climb up through dense forest warms leg muscles before you reach the point where your day opens before you as the peaks of Carn Mor Dearg and Ben Nevis come into view.
The ascent of Carn Mor Dearg comes with rewards – views over into ‘The Ben’s’ north face. The climbing routes look epic when viewed in this, their true context. Twin topped, the true summit of Carn Mor Dearg is pointedly perfect and sits pretty much at the top of the arête that spills down from it, curving around in a sinuous line, linking up with Ben Nevis. It’s this part of the day that you’ll remember above all else.
But save some energy for the climb up onto Ben Nevis proper, where the summit plateau levels out before you, just at the point where you think you can’t climb another step. They are the best ascents.
The summit shelter comes into its own in the winter. After safely navigating the summit plateau, the views westwards as you descend the Pony Track add an air of tranquility to the day’s majesty.
7. The Lairig Ghru, Cairngorms
The Cairngorms is the most expansive area of mountain wilderness in Britain. Situated east of the Highlands, it consists of huge areas of high sub-Arctic plateau and seemingly endless peaks, winter tending to come early if cold north-easterly winds do their work.
A predictably epic glen splits the high ground in two, known as the Lairig Ghru. As a linear walk it’s probably the finest non-summiting route you could hope to do. Add in winter conditions and you’ve got either a mammoth single day, or an adventurous two-day expedition on your hands.
It can be walked in either direction, but before you do so you’ll have to solve the logistical puzzle of how you get to and from each end of the walk (two cars being the most obvious solution).
Starting from the shores of Loch Morlich in the north, the Rothiemurchus forest, under a covering of snow, gives a sense of what the uplands would have looked like before we lost the majority of our tree cover.
Once in the Lairig Ghru you’re immediately sandwiched between the walls of Lurcher’s Crag on the left and Sron na Lairige on the right. This ascent up the narrowest part of the glen culminates in the Lairig Ghru’s high point – at 835m this is one high pass, not far off Munro height, making it a serious undertaking in the snow.
Heading southwards the pools of Dee are passed and the fledgling River Dee followed. The valley broadens out, with such peaks as Braeriach, Ben Macdui, and Carn Toul shadowing the Lairig Ghru.
None have quite the character of the Devil’s Point, a sentinel mountain that presides over all that pass through this old drover’s route. Below it is Corrour Bothy, the perfect place to overnight.
The beauty of Glen Lui makes for a preferable route out to the Linn of Dee and the end point, but not before the Scot’s pine forests of the Mar Lodge Estate have been enjoyed. A journey through the Lairig Ghru in winter reminds you of how vast wilderness should be.
About the author
Tom Bailey has been Trail Magazine and LFTO’s photographer for more than 20 years and is one of the most experienced hillwalkers and wild campers in Britain. He’s climbed more mountains than most people could dream of and is an oracle of knowledge on everything from routes and gear to geology and nature.