Welsh Passes: Bwlch y Groes, the Horseshoe and Pistyll Rhaeadr

Editor's note

Tyn Cornel Camping sits at Fron-goch outside Bala, two nights, with the day's ground the better part of seventeen kilometres off: a base you drive out from. The leg in is fifty-seven kilometres and an hour and a quarter. Bwlch y Groes climbs to 545m between Llanuwchllyn and Dinas Mawddwy, second among Welsh public road passes only to the Gospel Pass; the cross that names it stands below the summit at the junction with the Lake Vyrnwy road, on an old pilgrim route, with Aran Fawddwy and Cadair Idris in view. In the Berwyn Mountains, Pistyll Rhaeadr falls 73 metres in three stages through a natural rock arch, one of the Seven Wonders of Wales.

Editor's note

Tipis at Ponty stands at Pont-Y-Forwyn near Llansantffraid, one night, and the Horseshoe Pass is a good twenty-six kilometres off, so plan on driving to the day. The leg over from Bala is forty-eight kilometres and forty-five minutes. The A542 between Llangollen and Llandegla climbs round its great horseshoe bend between Llantysilio Mountain and Cyrn-y-Brain to 417m — the bend is the whole point. Below the pass stand the ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey, and in the field above them the Pillar of Eliseg, a 9th-century cross shaft raised by a king of Powys. From the Panorama road you can walk out along the Eglwyseg limestone escarpment.