The hotel's most notable mountaineering link is to the first successful Everest expedition in 1953 and the first successful Kangchenjunga expedition in 1955, where training and testing of oxygen equipment for those expeditions took place, at Helyg near Capel Curig. On the right at the hotel entrance there is a Tyrolean-style Stüberl (dining room) with the signatures, written on the ceiling, of the teams that did the first ascent of Everest in 1953 and of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga in 1955 - these include Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Sir John Hunt, Charles Evans, George Band, Joe Brown, John Angelo Jackson, Wilfred Noyce, Tony Streather, Tom Mackinnon, Norman Hardie, Neil Mather, John Clegg and others, including Noel Odell from Mallory's 1924 expedition and Chris Bonington of later successes. There are many photographs and exhibits provided by the original team members in the main bar and guest lounge. In the past each year, now every five years, Pen-y-Gwryd hosts the Everest and Kangchenjunga reunions.