This route was born from the desire to camp up at the Welsh lake up high, I saw it in a picture and thought looks like a good place to camp, it was and it wasn’t. Starting in Abergavenny and traversing your way right up into north Wales, only 150 miles but with about, 18000ft of elevation gain this wasn’t going to be an easy one, ohh and I took this on in late October just for some added welsh weather.

The terrain, the weather, can be tough going on this one, and I decided to do it on the gravel bike, there are a few road slogs, but I’m not sure if I would choose to do this route on a gravel bike again. Certainly not in the winter, maybe in the summer but if you take this route on with a gravel bike have big tyres and very easy gearing. The weather didn’t only beat me up on the trails, having to change course mid-way a couple of times because the wind I had to contend with was ruthless. When I finally reached the lake it was actually this beautiful evening with the sun staring to get low in the sky, however as a set-up camp for the night in a place that I was hoping would be perfect. It kind of was for most of the night, stars twinkling in the sky. A thick rain cloud would come over head, and non-stop rain would pursue. The ground I was on was an old building of sorts, so a thin layer of grass and dirt then rocks, so as the rain continued coming down the ground would start to flood, and I was sleeping in a puddle, still dry in my tent, but I had to keep pushing the water away. So I called it a quits at 4am packed up and starting heading home, more problems would arise, but I will let you watch the video for that.

I am sure on a beautiful summer welsh evening and a clear night heading up here for a little sneaky camp would be epic, it is beautiful up there.