Pensioner, 87, breaks record for oldest person to climb mount Snowdon… but cannot get back down

The veteran mountaineer, who has conquered Snowdon on more than 20 occasions, had planned the climb as his last charitable effort, raising funds for cancer charities in honour of his late father.

Mountain rescue teams confirmed the new record after bringing him to safety.

His younger son, Hywel, accompanied him on the expedition, though the pair maintained a careful distance to preserve the solo nature of the attempt.

“Hywel followed me up on the Pyg track, and kept a quarter of a mile behind me at all times until we reached the café at the top, where we met up,” Mr Llewellyn said.

The gruelling ascent took six hours in brutal conditions, with torrential rain, thick fog and winds reaching 70mph battering the mountain throughout.

Mr Llewellyn admitted the climb had been “really hard,” noting that he had last tackled Snowdon 17 years earlier.

“I’d forgotten how difficult it was,” he said.

For the descent, the pair opted to follow the Snowdon railway track downward, reasoning that the last train of the day had already departed.

However, after roughly a mile, Mr Llewellyn’s legs buckled beneath him twice, sending him tumbling onto the track.

Though uninjured, he had lost all strength in his legs and was unable to continue.

The Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team was called, and the pair endured a two-hour wait perched on a wet rock in relentless rain, soaked through entirely.

“When we saw them arrive and saw their head torches, what a wonderful feeling,” Mr Llewellyn recalled.

“It was like winning the lottery, I think.” He estimated four miles still remained when the team stretchered him to safety.

Mr Llewellyn described the climb as a fitting farewell to a long career of charitable mountaineering, all undertaken in memory of his father.

“I just wanted to do it one last time, that’s all,” he said.

Yet his pride at breaking the record was tinged with self-consciousness about needing help on the descent.

“We had to call out, I’m ashamed to say, the Llanberis mountain rescue team,” he admitted, though he was quick to praise the volunteers as “a wonderful group of people.”

Despite his mixed feelings, the 87-year-old said he was satisfied with his achievement.

“I am quite pleased with what I did,” he said, before conceding: “I don’t think I can do it again.”

Mount Snowdon is also known by its Welsh name, Yr Wyddfa