Aleister Crowley in North Wales

Although he was a notorious occultist - infamous for incorporating sex into ritual magic, ingesting huge amounts of drugs, and glorying in the name of the Great Beast - Aleister Crowley was also a keen mountaineer. During April and May of 1893 the 18-year-old Crowley, accompanied by a tutor, scaled a large number of Welsh peaks. Whether he had a Romantic interest in the Sublime or just wanted to conquer nature is unclear but he certainly took on the north Wales landscape with relish.

If you want to follow in his perilous bootsteps and do a kind of Aleister Crowley Welsh mountaineering challenge, then these are the peaks you need to climb: Tryfan (915m), Glyder Fach (994m), Glyder Fawr (999m), Y Garn (947m), Foel Grach (976m), Craig Yr Ysfa, Carnedd Dafydd (1044m), Carnedd Llewelyn (1064m), Yr Elen (962m), Pen yr Helgi Du (833m), Snowdon (1085m), Y Lliwedd (898m). He also ascended the daemonic-sounding Twll Ddu (Black Hole) cliff on Clogwyn y Geifr (Cliff of Goats) at Cwm Idwal.