In a 1918 edition of The Alpine Journal, mountaineer George Mallory ruminates upon his ascents of Mont Blanc. He exhorts readers: “One must conquer, achieve, get to the top . . . to know there’s no dream that must not be dared.” But soon after, he becomes more reflective: “Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves.” Edmund Hillary later picked up the theme of mountains as places for internal battles. “It is not the mountain we conquer,” he liked to say about his ascent of Everest. “It is ourselves.”

Well perhaps, I think, five hours into a hike in the Glyderau mountains of north-west Wales. After 15 minutes of zigzagging up a steep scree-slope my quads have begun to protest. On most hikes this is my cue to moderate the pace. To dig in. This time I open an app, press a button marked “Hyper” and slide a power setting to 55 per cent. I feel a soft pulse just above my knees before my legs ping forward as if on springs. Conquering ourselves is so last century.

I’m in north Wales to test the Hypershell — billed as the world’s first outdoor exoskeleton and promising to take hikers further, faster and with less effort. It has been developed by a Shanghai start-up that launched in 2021, aiming to propel technologies used in manufacturing and medical rehabilitation into the leisure market. Sales of the first model began in January this year, but I’m using an updated version, the flagship X Ultra, unveiled in early September.

Kelvin Sun, the company’s chief executive, tells me he founded the company after a decade in robotics “to help people do more. Hikers give up because their legs are exhausted. Parents struggle to keep up with their children. These everyday frustrations quietly limit freedom.” He sees an exoskeleton as “a natural extension of the body, helping you climb, run, walk and explore without surrendering control”.

If “exoskeleton” conjures mental images of sci-fi soldiers encased in gleaming metal you may be disappointed. In a hotel in Caernarfon where coach-tour pensioners bimble about the foyer, a Hypershell staffer clips me into what appears to be a climbing harness from a Mission Impossible movie. There’s a padded titanium alloy waistband with a slimline lithium battery, electric motors at each hip, and carbon-fibre calipers which curve to straps buckled just above the knees. It’s discreet(ish), sleek in matt black, and, at 1.8kg, relatively light.

The idea is similar to what e-bikes do for cyclists — offering assistance rather than taking over completely. The Hypershell senses which leg you’re beginning to move and engages the corresponding motor. And like e-biking it has different power settings — Eco and Hyper — plus a Fitness mode that actually increases resistance, making it harder to walk, for those in training. Control is via buttons on the motors (a confusing series of short and long presses) or, more intuitively, via an app or an Apple Watch. I select Eco and begin to walk.

It’s a curious thing to feel yourself propelled with a power beyond your own muscles. With the setting at 30 per cent my feet dart forwards. At 75 per cent my knees seem lifted by invisible strings and I stride from the room at unexpected speed, scattering pensioners at reception.

Independent testing by the Swiss certification company SGS found the X Ultra reduces exertion while walking by 20 per cent and by 39 per cent while cycling. Hypershell talks of “a world where curiosity, capability and choice are liberated from the body’s limits”. My body’s limits are those of a moderately fit man in middle age. The Glyderau mountains, 30 minutes inland, will offer quite a test.

On a map the range arcs in a dense scribble of contour lines and unlike Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), just a few miles away, there is neither train to the top, nor café when you get there. Hikers talk respectfully about its ice-shattered terrain and the boulder strewn heights which can be hard to navigate in fog.

Thankfully, the day of my hike is drenched in sunshine — “one day in 100”, says my guide from RAW Adventures as we park up where a narrow lane peters out. Behind us, a kaleidoscope of green fields, cross-hatched by stone walls and dotted with white houses, tips into a sea like beaten silver. Ahead rise the slopes of Carnedd y Filiast. The plan is to climb to the top then track the ridge for 15km, passing over the summits of Y Garn, Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach, before dropping back down to the road at Idwal Cottage.

That should be a doddle for the X Ultra — on Eco mode at 30 per cent a battery lasts 30km or roughly 7.5 hours’ hiking. (Hyper at 100 per cent has a range of 5.3km/80 minutes.) Each Hypershell unit comes with two 400g batteries. My knees will give up long before they do.

As I climb I play with the power settings, switching from Eco to Hyper. “You’ll never use that at 100 per cent,” the press officer had said earlier, so obviously I power to maximum. It’s like being in Wallace & Gromit’s Wrong Trousers — the smallest movement sees my legs spring like grasshoppers.

As well as the power settings there are a dozen “intelligent modes”: sensors monitor your movements, work out if you are, for example, walking, running or cycling, then subtly adjust the “assistive curve” (how much power, and when the motor delivers it, across the duration of each step). Going downhill, say, there’s a slight lifting as your leg comes to its lowest position, in order to reduce impact. Hypershell says the system also uses AI to learn the gait of its user and so further optimise its assistance.

For the ascent up to the ridge I switch to Hyper 40 per cent and power steadily through the heather-covered slopes. I still have to push forward but the effort of has been outsourced. I reach the top after 20 minutes with a heart rate of 86bpm, only 25bpm over its resting rate.

It feels rather like cheating to have accessed the roof of Wales without breaking a sweat. Wisps of cloud spin from the summits and sheep-speckled slopes shine silver-green in the sunshine.

Hypershell might seem outlandish but is part of a wider trend, as the wearable technology sector increasingly expands into the great outdoors. A 2024 report by Grand View Research estimated the sector’s annual revenue at $84bn, and suggested it might grow to $186bn by 2030.

Driving this are GPS-enabled watches and fitness trackers by companies such as Garmin and Suunto, “wrist-wear” as it’s known in the trade. Other products include Carv, an AI-ski instructor system which uses sensors clipped to your boots and paired to your smartphone and earphones. Its second-generation system sold out last winter.

Four hours into the hike I’m bowling along on Eco 40 per cent with 52 per cent battery left, the app reports. Blue-grey mountains peel in layers like stage flats. At one point I pause for a godlike view over the hanging valley of Cwm Idwal to Tryfan, the Glyderau’s shapeliest mountain. Yet I’m distracted. I’m fighting the temptation to fiddle with my phone despite scenery which could inspire poetry. I suspect this will pass with familiarisation — or an Apple Watch interface — but my phone drags me mentally from the scenery.

The walking is effortless, however. Halfway up that stiff ascent of the scree-slope I knock off the power as an experiment and my legs feel stuck in treacle. I power back up. I am Robohiker! See me climb!

Welsh scholar Sir Ifor Williams mooted that Glyder may derive from the Welsh word “gludair”, meaning pile of stones. That doesn’t begin to do justice to Glyder Fawr (1,001 metres) and Glyder Fach (994 metres). The ridge joining the two is a chaotic realm of blasted boulders. Fins of rocks fan at mad angles, like petrified explosions. Castell y Gwynt (Castle of the Winds) is as otherworldly as a fortress of Middle Earth — it’s not surprising it was used as a location in the Walt Disney movie Dragonslayer.

I find a hiker called Andy there with his dog. We compare notes and congratulate each other on the weather; he explains his plan to spend the night up here photographing stars. Finally, he plucks up courage: “What’s them on your legs, then?” He nods when I explain. “A pal of mine loves the mountains but can’t come anymore — knees have gone. I’ll tell him about this.”

Maybe that’s the true value of Hypershell. For some users, saving 20 per cent of effort just means they’ll be able to add an extra mountain to the day’s itinerary; for others, it holds the promise of continued mobility.

The morning after my day with robo-legs is not pretty. Having walked 15.9km and climbed the equivalent of 475.33 floors according to the app’s statistics, I hobble downstairs to breakfast. Did I overdo it? Kelvin Sun brushes off suggestions that exoskeletons encourage overexertion. “Think of it like learning to drive,” he says. “You get the hang of it first then it becomes a tool that helps you go further safely.”

I can’t shrug off the feeling it’s cheating, though; that a satisfying hike entails mental challenge as Hillary proposed. “For some the challenge is part of the joy,” Sun concedes. “For others it’s about going further, spending more time outside. If you’re out there connecting with nature and enjoying yourself without exhaustion, it’s not cheating — it’s expanding what’s possible.”

He’s right, of course. Still, I can’t wait to see what happens when this turns up on Strava.

James Stewart was a guest of Hypershell (hypershell.tech). The Hypershell X Ultra costs £1,599

Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning