All walks › Rhayader & the Elan Valley
Rhayader & the Elan ValleyAbergwesyn Pass and the Devil’s Staircase
The old drovers’ road over the mountains between Abergwesyn and Tregaron, and the hairpin climb that gives it its name. Empty in a way that is hard to find in Britain now.
- Distance
- 3.7 mi / 6 km
- Time
- 2 hr 20
- Ascent
- 320 m
- Difficulty
- Demanding
- Shape
- There and back
Where it is
The circle shows the general area, not the exact start. Use the directions link below to get to the car park itself. Contours and paths shown are OpenTopoMap, drawn from OpenStreetMap data.
The route
From a layby on the pass, strike up onto the open ground either side of the road and follow the ridges and old tracks. There are no waymarked routes; you are making your own line on access land, so this needs map and compass competence.
Worth knowing
- This is genuine remote country. No signal, no shelter, no passing traffic for long stretches in winter.
- The road itself is single track with severe gradients and is regularly closed by snow between December and March.
- Drovers took cattle over here to English markets. The tracks you are walking on are older than the road.
What you’ll see
Blanket bog, red kites and ravens, the Irfon far below, and an enormous amount of nothing in the best sense.
Background
The pass carried drovers’ herds from Ceredigion into England for centuries. The road was not surfaced until well into the twentieth century and remains one of the most demanding public roads in Wales.