I wasn’t part of Ultra Trail Snowdonia. I was just going for a run up Snowdon, the same thing I’ve been doing most Saturdays for the past month while training for Ras Y Wyddfa in July. But when I arrived in Llanberis on Saturday 16 May, I found myself on the fringes of one of the UK’s biggest trail running events without really planning to.
Ultra Trail Snowdonia by UTMB is a major international race festival based in Llanberis, with around 2,800 runners from over 63 nationalities competing across five distances, from the Eryri 25K all the way up to a 100-mile mountain race. It runs across a long weekend in May, and Saturday is the big day, with the 50K, 80K and 100K races all on the mountain at once.
The event village
The race village occupied the field between the Llanberis Lake Railway station and Llyn Padarn, set slightly back from the Ras Y Wyddfa start area. With most runners already out on the courses and spectators sheltering from the rain, it felt surprisingly calm, though a small group had gathered under umbrellas around a gazebo to watch an interview with a previous participant. It was lively in a quiet way.
The brand presence was impressive. Hoka, The North Face, Topo Athletic and LEKI all had stands, with several brands displaying large stocks of shoes and offering demo opportunities. There were nutrition brands too, including Maurten, and what looked like an eco-fuelling concept that caught my eye. Hoka were running a Speedgoat 7 launch activation, with a poster tracing the evolution of the Speedgoat from 2015 to 2026, a shoe that’s become synonymous with mountain ultra running. There was even a “Who’s Your GOAT?” token voting station. After about 20 minutes I set off up the path just after 1pm.
Up into the cloud
Previous Saturdays on the Llanberis Path had been in warm sunshine. One had been properly hot. This was different. The cloud base sat at roughly 700 metres, around the level of the Halfway House café, and above that you were in it. The valley floor was a reasonable 12-14°C, but by the summit it was closer to 2-3°C with driving rain coming in hard from the northeast. I’d estimate gusts of 35-45mph above Clogwyn station, with very few breaks.
Most UTS routes had used the Llanberis Path for the ascent, which meant by early afternoon the flow of runners on the path was mostly coming down. Wet, focused, still moving well. In a couple of places where marshals were directing runners, a high-vis figure would loom out of the fog and shout “UTS?” at me. I’d shake my head. “Not me, maybe one day” or “nope, going the short way.” They were always cheerful about it, which felt generous given the conditions they were working in.
Hafod Eryri
The summit building was packed. It was so full of wet runners and walkers that the air near the door was actually foggy, condensation from soaked bodies warming up in an enclosed space. At the far end, near the food queue, it was warm enough. In the half of the café near the entrance you could still feel the cold coming off people’s kit. I stayed about ten minutes, then headed back out.
Leaving the summit into that wind and rain is a strange mental exercise when you’re already damp and warming up. The instinct is to stay put. But within a couple of minutes of descending, the effort of running generates enough heat that it stops being a problem, even at the lower heart rate of a downhill. Below Clogwyn it gets noticeably warmer quickly, and by the time you’re back through the cloud base it’s a different mountain entirely.
What the UTS runners were dealing with
To be clear about the conditions: this wasn’t just a bit of drizzle on Snowdon. The final section from Clogwyn up to the summit, roughly the last 800 metres of climbing, was driving rain, strong crosswind and near-zero visibility in cloud. I got a touch of brain freeze on the part of my forehead facing into the wind. It didn’t fully pass until I was inside the summit café. Had it continued much longer I’d have needed to reach for emergency layers. That was just me going up and straight back down. The 50K, 80K and 100K runners were out there as part of a far longer day.
Naturally, these images and video clips don’t fully capture it, but the contrast with a clear day is stark. The below image shows the same section of the Llanberis Path as the video above in golden evening light from March, Llyn Padarn visible in the valley below and the Clogwyn railway station clear on the ridge.
Worth knowing if you’re thinking about UTS
If you’re a runner curious about Ultra Trail Snowdonia and wondering whether to enter, the event village is worth a visit even if you’re not racing. The Eryri 25K is the entry-level distance and uses terrain familiar to anyone who has run the Llanberis Path before. Entries for future years open through the UTMB World Series website.
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