When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first stood on the top of Mount Everest, only a handful of people knew the debt of gratitude they owed not only to the mountains of North Wales but also to a little hotel in the lee of Snowdon. It was at the Pen y Gwryd Hotel (or 'PyG') that members of the 1953 Everest Expedition stayed during their training for that historic adventure, and it subsequently became - and remains - a place of pilgrimage for mountaineers the world over. With an introduction by Jan Morris, the Times reporter who accompanied that first successful expedition and broke the story to the world, The Pen y Gwryd Hotel: Tales from the Smoke Room tells the story of 'one of the great climbing inns of Europe' through series of anecdotes, reminiscences and tributes, including contributions by a veritable who's who of walkers, climbers and writers.
