Mountain lives
STEVE WEBB PEN-Y- PASS YOUTH HOSTEL DEPUTY MANAGER
Life at the foot of Snowdon
Working at the hostel below the busiest mountain in the UK has its challenges, but Steve Webb greets 35,000 guests a year with a smile on his face.
“Working at Pen-y- Pass youth hostel isn’t merely a job, it’s a way of life,” explains deputy manager Steve Webb. “Every member of staff – from the people working in the bar or on reception, to those cleaning the rooms or in management – is a mountain lover dedicated to helping each and every person who walks through our front door.”
Sitting at the foot of Snowdon, the YHA Pen-yPass youth hostel couldn’t be more teasingly located for hillwalkers venturing to the highest mountain in England and Wales. The ever-popular Pyg Track and Miners’ Track routes that wind up towards Snowdon’s summit originate only 150 yards from the hostel. “It’s thought up to 700,000 people visit Snowdon every year and almost half of those visitors start out from our car park,” says Steve.
Unsurprisingly, Pen-y- Pass is one of the busiest youth hostels, if not in the UK then certainly in Wales. Up to 35,000 people stay at the hostel every year, guests often book their rooms up to 12 months in advance and on a busy evening in peak season there can be as many as 150 visitors in the building.
“People come to stay at Pen-y- Pass for one reason, and that’s to climb Snowdon,” says Steve. “We see a real spectrum of visitors, from those who have all the gear and the idea to go with it, to those who have never climbed a mountain. And that’s what I love about my job – I never know who’s going to walk into reception.”
The unrivalled popularity of Snowdon comes at a price, however, as increased footfall translates to more hillwalking accidents. The Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, whose patch includes Snowdon, are the most relied upon MRT in the UK. In 2016 the volunteer group became the first mountain rescue team in Britain to respond to more than 200 incidents in a 12-month period, the majority of which occurred on Snowdon. Given hundreds of thousands of Snowdon climbers start out from Pen-y-Pass, Steve says the hostel team feel a “moral duty of care” to keep people as safe as possible, and potentially save the mountain rescue team a job. Such a task, though, is easier said than done...
“A few years ago, a young lad walked into reception and said he wanted to climb Snowdon,” explains Steve. “Despite it being spring, conditions on the mountain were still winter-like and this chap was wearing a leather jacket, jeans and a pair of trainers. I advised him against going up but he said he’d be fine and that he was from Poland where he regularly climbs mountains during winter. As much as I tried to dissuade him
I couldn’t physically stop him and so he turned and walked out the door. Later that day, the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team were called out to an incident on Snowdon. The conditions for the rescue weren’t ideal and the team were moments away from abandoning their search when they found this Polish guy clinging for his life on Crib Goch. Had the mountain rescue team called off the search, I have no doubt he would have died up there.”
Up to now, no Pen-y- Pass hostel guest has become a mountain rescue fatality statistic, and it’s clear Steve wants to do everything he can to keep it that way. He adds, “Some people describe the hostel staff as the ‘mountain police’, but we’re not. We have to be quite blunt with some people but we can’t force anyone not to climb Snowdon, we can only hand out our best advice. If conditions are poor, we’ll suggest they climb a different mountain or go to the beach instead.”
When asked what other challenges the team at Pen-y- Pass face, Steve points to the recent decision taken by the Snowdonia National Park Authority (SNPA) to significantly increase the charges for the car park directly opposite the hostel. Previously, users could pay £5 to park for up to four hours and £10 for all day, but the £5 fare has been scrapped and so visitors must now pay £10 regardless of how long they park for in a single day. More frustratingly for Steve and the team, the introduction of a £10 overnight parking charge means Pen-yPass hostel guests who arrive by car are now likely to pay more for parking than a one-night stay in a dorm room.
“The new parking charges beggar belief. The Pen-y- Pass car park is now the most expensive for any UK mountain,” says Steve. “The increases are the biggest bug for our guests as the whole ethos of the YHA is it’s cheap and good value for money, but that literally changed overnight and we weren’t even consulted beforehand.” The YHA is in talks with the SNPA about the issue.
Steve is confident the matter won’t prove too destructive for the hostel’s business, given its supreme location for walkers and venerable mountain history, which is another reason people flock to Pen-y- Pass. Indeed, the hostel’s café/ bar is named ‘Mallory’ in tribute to the celebrated British climber, George, who stayed at Pen-y- Pass while he trained
“SO FAR, NO PEN-Y-PASS HOSTEL GUEST HAS BECOME A MOUNTAIN RESCUE FATALITY STATISTIC”
in Snowdonia for his ill-fated Everest expedition in 1924. Formerly a fine dining Victorian hotel, Steve recounts how one guest visited Pen-y- Pass to find a framed picture on the dining room wall of his great grandmother enjoying a silver service dinner with Mallory, who sat in a tweed suit smoking his pipe. “I often wonder, if the walls of the hostel could talk, what tales of epic adventure, and misadventure they would speak of. No doubt it would be fascinating.”
A former teacher at a boarding school, Steve has also worked as a web designer and in a warehouse selling horseshoes. But his calling to take on a life in the mountains was kick- started when he spotted a job advert for a team member role at Pen-y- Pass youth hostel. On something of a whim, he thought ‘why not?’ and put in an application.
That was almost five years ago and now he can’t imagine doing anything else. “I’ve worked in a city before, but I could never go back to that now. Where we live, at the foot of the Carnedds in Gerlan, we can be in the mountains or on the beach within 20 minutes. It doesn’t get better than that,” says Steve.
He and wife Liz have a two-and-ahalf-year- old son, Toby, to look after and the 45-year- old admits his time in the mountains is duly limited for now. But, despite his proximity to Snowdon, Steve confesses he’s only ever climbed it twice. “I see this mountain five or six times a week on my commute, I work at the bottom of it and Snowdon is what everyone talks about all day, so that personal interest isn’t there anymore. Plus, there are plenty of other hills.”
He is a keen walker though, and has notable form. In 2012, he became one of the first people to walk the entire perimeter of Wales, linking Offa’s Dyke with the Wales Coast Path to create a 1047-mile mega route. Walking an average of almost 20 miles a day, Steve completed the route in 53 days and wild camped for 50 nights along the way.
Unfazed by a challenge, Steve took on an equally demanding endeavour the following year when he set up the Outdoor Gear Exchange UK page on Facebook – an online community that allows people to freely trade their outdoor equipment. Since it began five years ago, the page now has more than 75,000 members and has raised over £3000 for charities. “It’s just taken off,” says Steve, who was managing to run the page single-handedly until wife Liz insisted he recruited extra admins so they could go away on holiday without Steve having to check the site every hour. “The page really is a community and it’s not only about swapping gear. We recently helped someone find the car keys they had dropped on Snowdon!”
While he is a decidedly modest man, Steve’s motive for creating the gear exchange service seems clear, and it’s the same reason he enjoys his role at Peny- Pass youth hostel so much. He simply yearns to help.