Oh yes!
If you’re visiting Snowdon for the first time you could be forgiven for asking this question but the answer is almost certainly YES, no matter what time of year you’re visiting.
When climbing a mountain it’s important to understand how the climate changes as you ascend. As a very rough guide, temperatures drop by 1° for every 100m you climb. If you’re starting in the village of Llanberis, which is about 100m above sea level, you’re going to be climbing around 1000m which suggests the temperature will be 10° colder at the top than where you started. And that’s before we add in other factors like wind chill which can easily knock off another 5-10°.
A good, warm wooly hat and a decent pair of gloves will make a huge difference to your enjoyment of the mountain. I regularly guide clients who rock up in the morning with the flimsiest pair of cheap gloves that might be fine for a short, morning commute or a quick game of football at the weekend but aren’t going to withstand six to eight hours with possibly below-zero temperatures. It’s not uncommon for some people to lose the feeling in their fingers after a prolonged period of cold which has knock-on effects of not being able to do up zips, eat or drink or go to the toilet. While this will rectify itself when you descend and warm up, it can cause serious problems on the day.
So make sure you have a good hat and pair of gloves and I’d even go as far as saying pack a spare of each too. And if it’s a wet day, you’ll definitely need more than one pair of gloves as they’ll get wet quickly and become useless. I’ve never found a pair of truly waterproof gloves so the only answer you have here is to carry multiple pairs. In winter, I’ll typically carry three or four pairs of gloves in my rucksack.
