Bodies of four missing teenagers found in crashed car

Supt Llewellyn said the search area where the car was found had “some complexities”, adding that it was a “difficult scene to manage”.

The mother of Harvey Owen, Crystal, who had driven down to Snowdonia to help with the search effort before the bodies were found, told the BBC she had been unaware he was going on a camping trip and believed he had been going to a friend’s grandparents house.

“If I’d have known [where he was going] I wouldn’t have let him due to the winter weather conditions”, she said.

Wilf’s girlfriend posted a tribute on social media as the news of his death broke, writing: “I’m going to miss you forever.”

Eryri National Park, also known as Snowdonia, is Wales’s largest national park, covering a total of 823 sq miles (1,324 sq km).

The village of Garreg, the nearest settlement to where they were found, contains only 18 homes.

A resident of 50 years, who asked not to be named, said that the sound of helicopters woke her at five o’clock on Tuesday morning.

She said that the road the boys had been travelling on, which leads up to Beddgelert, was “very bendy”.

Councillor June Jones, of Gwynedd Council for Glaslyn ward, said the discovery was “incredibly sad”.

She added: “I think people will be shocked for a long time. People want answers. Why? What happened there? What happened?”

Cllr Jones said the mobile phone signal in the valley was non-existent so the majority of the locals had assumed “oh they’re out of signal, they’ve gone camping, they’re having fun.”

Liz Saville Roberts, the local MP, and Mabon ap Gwynfor, the local Senedd member, said in a joint statement: “No words can sufficiently reflect the sorrow that this news brings to our whole community.”