CROSS PURPOSES
Trevor Ward ventures to the lesser-visited Lake Vyrnwy and a rendezvous with the venomous Bwlch y Groes – the Pass of The Cross
There’s no one around at all. The only signs of life are distant white specks of sheep
Shortly after consuming a full Welsh breakfast in the busy dining room of my hilltop hotel, I’m cycling through a dramatic cauldron of mountains, lakes and waterfalls, and wondering where the rest of the human race has disappeared to.
Never mind, I think, as I start the first climb of the day. There’s bound to be a motorcyclist at the top taking selfies to celebrate their epic achievement of getting up there with just a 500cc engine to help them. But there’s no one. The road tumbles down into a broad valley devoid of such 21st-century accoutrements as traffic, buildings and overhead power lines. The only signs of life are distant white specks of sheep and the shadows of the clouds scudding across the heather-dappled slopes.
This is the hinterland between the southern edge of the Snowdonia National Park and mid Wales, an area of lakes, mountains and a crushing sense of nothingness.
My scheduled co-rider bailed out at the last minute for personal reasons, adding to my sense of being the last man on Earth, so after leaving the northern shore of Lake Vyrnwy – a five-milelong reservoir constructed in the 1880s to supply drinking water to the growing metropolis of Liverpool, 50 miles to the north – I set off on my first ascent of this early October day in solitude.
Into the void
It’s when I reach the top of the Hirnant Pass and the border between Powys and Gwynedd that I see the road tipping into the void. It’s a dream highway – a succession of gentle, smoothly tarmacked curves spilling downwards forever like a piece of ‘infinity infrastructure’. It’s the kind of road you should be forced to buy a ticket to ride.
Seven miles later, it’s all over and I’m on the shore of another expanse of water, Lake Bala, wishing there was a drag-lift back to the top so that I could do it all over again.
The road along this eastern side of Lake Bala – like the one around Lake Vyrnwy – is a slight disappointment, however. There are just too many trees and high hedges in the way to be able to enjoy views of the water.
At the end of the lake I take a lane guarded by a bilingual sign declaring a set of restrictions ranging from ‘singletrack road with few passing places’ to a weight limit of two tonnes. Though it’s a generous number of warnings for drivers, it
fails to mention a crucial detail more pertinent to those of us on two non-powered wheels: that the road will ascend for six miles at a gradient that will nudge double figures for long periods.
I’m untroubled by other road users all the way to the top. During the second, steeper half of the climb, I’m treated to spectacular views of the Aran mountains, home to the highest peaks in Wales outside of Snowdonia.
The final ramp forces me out of the saddle until I reach the summit and a windswept car park. There’s just one vehicle here and its occupants bear the horrified expressions of those who came looking for a cafe and free Wi-Fi but found only boundless views of soaring, craggy escarpments and endless, deep valleys.
Cross reference
This is Bwlch y Groes – ‘Pass of The Cross’. At 545 metres, it’s one of the highest tarmacked roads in Wales. A few metres down the other side is the eponymous cross, celebrating the road’s place on medieval pilgrimage routes.
You can turn left at the cross and head back down to Lake Vyrnwy if you fancy, but my day isn’t over yet. The plan is to descend to the foot of the mountain and have lunch in the village of Dinas Mawddwy, before turning around and climbing back up to the Bwlch on its tougher side.
Or, as Simon Warren describes it in his book
100 Greatest Cycling Climbs, I’ll grapple with “arguably the hardest section of relentlessly steep tarmac in Britain”. So, as I descend, I’m trying to gauge the gradient beneath me and crossreference every noticeable shift in steepness with roadside landmarks – chief of which is a long stretch of fairly new-looking Armco crash barrier - so that I can pace my effort accordingly on the return journey.
My cunning plan, however, is thrown into disarray when I arrive in Dinas and find its streets deserted and nowhere to buy any food. The nearest cafe, Google informs me, is 10 miles away, on the far side of another mountain pass, Bwlch Oerddrws.
There’s no other choice but for me to suck up any remaining crumbs from my recently devoured cereal bar and try to stave off my hunger pangs until I’ve conquered what is cheerily described by another author – Chris Sidwells in his book Really Wild Cycling – as “one of the toughest climbs in the UK, one of the hardest most people will ever encounter”.
I’m growing increasingly apprehensive as I retrace my route to the village of Llanymawddwy, which had been barely more than a stone-grey blur on my way down. Now that I have time to consult the information board
The road ascends for six miles at a gradient that will nudge double figures for long periods
I’m at the foot of the climb facing a 20 per cent hairpin that curls around like an arrogant sneer. I decide to keep my two biggest sprockets in reserve
opposite the village’s handsome church, it informs me that I’m following in the footsteps of drovers who took their livestock over the pass and faced a “perilous journey home with pockets full of money”. To help calm their nerves, the drovers would stop at one of the village’s seven pubs. Alas, Llanymawddwy these days is just a handful of houses with no amenities for the hungry traveller or nervous cyclist.
Owain goal
I continue, bracing myself for the hairpin I know denotes the start of the climb proper, trying to suppress the rumbling from my stomach. A few hundred metres beyond the village, a cyclist is sitting on the grass verge with his bike slumped at his side. He must have passed me unnoticed while I was looking for food in Dinas Mawddwy. Apart from those lost souls at the summit car park, he’s the first human being I’ve seen all day.
“Everything okay?” I ask, hoping the answer is ‘yes’ and I won’t be forced to stop and reveal my lack of mechanical aptitude.
“Yeah, fine, I’m just psyching myself up.”
I slam on the brakes. “What? Is the climb really that bad?”
“Well, I do it about once every couple of months and it never gets any easier.”
We introduce ourselves. Owain Watkins is a sheep and cattle farmer who is returning home after an 80-mile ride. The Bwlch y Groes is his last climb of the day. I notice he has a frame bag on his bike.
“I’ve done a few touring trips,” he says, “but it’s usually with a rucksack strapped to my saddle. My last one was to Istanbul. Before that, I flew to Geneva to meet my mate, bought a second-hand bike and we rode to Morocco together from there.”
At 26, he’s half of my age, so I decide not to ask him if he wants to do the climb together. While he’s busy psyching himself up, I can get a good head start.
“I’ll see you at the top,” I say, knowing he’ll probably overtake me.
Soon afterwards, I’m at the foot of the climb and facing that 20 per cent hairpin that curls around like an arrogant sneer. I decide it’s crucial that I keep my biggest two sprockets – a 30 and a 34 – in reserve, like smuggling both a life-jacket and a parachute on board a Boeing 737 Max.
Once past the hairpin and out of the trees, I’m able to sit back down and contemplate the challenge. There are two kilometres of hard work ahead, though I remind myself it won’t get really steep until I reach the Armco barrier. It’s vital I pace myself until then.
Then a quote from another book – Tim Krabbé’s novel The Rider – comes to mind. The racing cyclist hero of the story says the secret of climbing is to find a rhythm and “rock your organs’ protests back to sleep”.
By the time I reach the barrier, I’m already weaving from side to side. Instead of finding a rhythm, I’m blundering into a cacophony. I click down to my 30, batten down the metaphorical hatches and secure all loose objects.
The Milk Race used to come up here in the 1970s and 80s. Riders like Malcolm Elliott would have to grimace their way up with nothing lower than a 39x25 gear ratio to save them. Apparently, some of them ended up walking. (Memo to self: ‘Must stop reading so much history, it’s scaring me.’)
To Elliott and his fellow rouleurs, my Pinarello gravel bike with its only-in-case-of-emergency gearing of 34x34 would have looked like a spaceship. Or sacrilege.
Before the Milk Race discovered this climb, car manufacturers used it to test their sportiest models, giving it its alternative and far more evocative name of ‘Hellfire Pass’. This knowledge does nothing to restore my peace of mind.
I sense my legs about to grind to a halt unless I pull the ripcord. There’s a nanosecond of relief as the chain claws its way up onto my final remaining sprocket.
Rear view
It takes an eternity, but the cross that marks the turn off for Lake Vyrnwy - my base for the evening - finally slips into view. As the curvature of the Earth subsides beneath me, I slump back in the saddle and glance behind.
Owain is gaining on me, his jersey unzipped and swinging from side to side, but by the time he reaches the junction I’m already sat on a wall taking deep gulps of the crisp, autumnal air and savouring the views back down the valley.
Seeing my bottle is empty, Owain offers me some of his water, but I decline. We are, after all, in the time of Covid-19.
While getting our breath back, I ask him how lockdown was for him. Expecting a grim tale of lost business and disrupted lives, our friendly sheep farmer answers me with a broad smile. “It’s actually been great. The price of lamb has skyrocketed - it must be everyone staying in and cooking at home.”
The mountain has another name: Hellfire Pass. This does nothing for my peace of mind
As we start the descent, Owain explains why I’ve seen so few people during my ride.
“Most visitors head to the bigger mountains in Snowdonia. Not many people know about us.” That explains the lack of cafes, then.
Dam fine
We arrive at the lake and head towards its easternmost end and the handsome dam. Built from local slate, it’s responsible for keeping some 60 million cubic metres of water in check. As we ride across it, Owain comes out with the slightly disconcerting fact about why the dam wall is regularly checked. “Its position shifts about a centimetre each year because of the pressure from all that water.”
Once on the other side, we bump elbows in front of a fading bronze plaque commemorating the reservoir’s first delivery of water to the citizens Liverpool in 1892, before Owain turns right for his final few miles home and I turn left for the short climb up to my hotel.
From the dining room, I look out to the silvery mass of Lake Vyrnwy stretching towards the mountains that I’ve spent the morning climbing. Little-known and visited they may be, but they’ve left a deep impression on me, although I’m not yet sure if the feeling is one of euphoria or a severe case of hunger knock.