Snowdonia (Eryri)

Six paths to the 1,085m summit and over 600,000 people a year on them. The Llanberis Path is the longest and most gradual at nine miles return; the Pyg Track and Miners' Track are shorter and steeper from Pen y Pass. All of them are hard walks, not strolls.

Llanberis to the summit and back in about two and a half hours, including half an hour at Hafod Eryri. Diesel adult returns £45 off-peak to £48 peak; heritage steam from £62. Online bookings carry a £4 admin charge and are non-refundable.

Forty miles of narrow gauge through the park, built to bring slate down to the harbour. The Caernarfon to Porthmadog run is 25 miles round the west side of Yr Wyddfa. Children travel for a flat £5.

The zip line over a flooded slate quarry at Bethesda, billed as the fastest in the world. From £99, more in high summer, and it must be booked.

The ranges either side of the Ogwen valley, higher in places than anything in England and far emptier than Yr Wyddfa. National Trust land, with wild ponies on the Carneddau tops.

The North Wales coast line serves Bangor and Llandudno Junction, with the Conwy Valley line running inland to Betws-y-Coed and Blaenau Ffestiniog. The Cambrian coast line reaches Porthmadog and Harlech from the south.

The car park at the head of the pass is booked in advance through JustPark: £25 for up to eight hours, £35 for eight to twelve, £45 for a full day. It fills, and if you turn up without a booking you will be sent back down the pass.

The S routes ring the mountain, linking Llanberis, Nant Peris, Pen y Pass, Beddgelert, Betws-y-Coed and Caernarfon. An adult day ticket is £7.50, which is a third of the cheapest parking.

May, June and September: the longest settled spells, and the paths dry enough to be pleasant rather than a scramble in mud.

November to February. Empty, cheap, and the tops are a full winter mountaineering proposition rather than a walk.

July and August, and any sunny weekend, when Pen y Pass sells out and the Llanberis Path becomes a queue.

Up early for the mountain with a pre-booked Pen y Pass slot, or the Sherpa bus in from Llanberis.

Pyg Track to the ridge, with Llyn Llydaw below you and the Miners' Track as the way down.

Sandwiches on the summit if the cloud lifts, or in Hafod Eryri if it does not.

Down the Miners' Track to Pen y Pass, then into Llanberis for the lake and Dolbadarn Castle.

Beer and a very large dinner in Llanberis or Beddgelert. Kitchens stop early in both.

An Italianate village built on a wooded headland near Porthmadog between 1925 and 1975, and the set for The Prisoner. Ticketed, and reachable from Minffordd station.

A walled town with an Edward I castle at the mouth of the estuary, on the main line, and an easy contrast to a day on the hill.