Anne Lister Research Summit | 2026

 Yr Wyddfa (Mount Snowdon) is the visual theme for the 2026 Summit.

Rising to 1,085m (3,560 ft) in what is now Eryri / Snowdonia National Park, it’s the highest peak in Wales, and in the British Isles south of Scotland.

On 15 July 1822, Anne Lister set out for Snowdon in the afternoon, measuring her progress with typical precision. She took a gig to the Beddgelert road, then began the ascent on foot, gaining “the highest point of the highest summit Wydfa” in just under four hours. A promised sunset didn’t appear (clouds had other ideas), but she still recorded a “magnificent prospect” of lakes scattered among the mountains, the Menai Strait, and the bays of Cardigan and Caernarvon. 

And then there’s the part we love most: she didn’t climb alone. Anne was joined by her 57-year-old aunt Anne, who, against all expectations and with a little assistance, also reached the top. 

"Neither the guide (Evan Jones) nor I expected my aunt to go to the top, and therefore took a boy with us to conduct her to Llanberis — As we went along in the gig we had perceived 2 men on horseback after us — they rode to the pass of Llanberis, sent their horses to the village, and we soon found them at our heels going up the mountain — They contrived to join us for the benefit of our guide, to which I should have objected but one of them was the son of our Innkeeper and the others (a Mr Reid an attorney) arm was taken by my aunt and he helped her up the mountain and was in fact the means of enabling her to get up to the top."

(SH:7/ML/E/6/0026, transcription by Jenna Beyer)

It’s a lovely reminder that not all help is planned, not every route is easy, and sometimes the “means of enabling” is simply another person offering an arm at the right moment — exactly the kind of steady, collective climb the Summit is here to foster.