The road that starts at the town's doorstep
Most of the drives in this section need a run up the valley first; this one does not. The mountain road to Dylife leaves Machynlleth by Forge and Aberhosan and climbs straight onto the roof of Mid Wales, and within twenty minutes of the clock tower you are on open, unfenced moorland with nothing in sight but grass, sheep and sky. Twenty miles later it comes down into Llanidloes. For anyone living in the town it is the road you take to be somewhere else entirely, which is what makes it worth a visitor's morning.
Nothing about it is a main road. It is single track in stretches, with passing places, cattle grids and long rises where the sightlines are better than the surface, and sheep are not fenced off it. There is no fuel, no shop and no toilet along its whole length, and mobile signal is unreliable. Stock up in Machynlleth or Llanidloes first.
Foel Fadian and the finest view in Wales
The high point of the drive, in every sense, is the Wynford Vaughan-Thomas memorial viewpoint near Foel Fadian. A stone toposcope stands beside the road, put there because the broadcaster reckoned this the best view in Wales; Visit Wales quotes the same judgement and describes looking north to the faraway peaks of Eryri, dark in summer and snow-dusted in winter.
Foel Fadian, at 510 metres, is also the highest point of Glyndŵr's Way, the 135-mile National Trail from Knighton to Welshpool. Walkers and drivers get the same panorama, and from the summit ground the view runs back down the Dulas valley to the town. There is space to pull off at the toposcope; use it rather than stopping on the road, because the rises hide oncoming traffic.
Dylife: a lead-mining landscape
Dylife is the reason many people drive this road. Natural Resources Wales places the mine 13 kilometres north-west of Llanidloes on the mountain route towards Machynlleth and dates working from the early 1600s — possibly from Roman times — to the 1930s, with the boom years in the mid-1800s when a great water wheel was built. Lead and zinc came from three lodes: Dylife, Esgairgaled and Llechwedd Ddu. What survives is bare spoil heaps, shafts, adits, underground workings and ruins including wheelpits and leats.
The Royal Commission's Coflein record describes the village that went with the mines: a church, a chapel, a school, an inn and rows of terraced cottages, abandoned after mining ceased in the late 1800s. South of Dylife, at Pen-y-Crogbren, Coflein records further workings with tunnels believed to be Roman, alongside a small Roman fort — a near-square turf enclosure 25 metres across, excavated in 1960 and compared to the milecastles on Hadrian's Wall.
Old metal mines are dangerous ground. Shafts and adits are not all fenced, spoil is unstable, and NRW notes that the Afon Twymyn fails water quality standards for zinc, lead and cadmium because of metal-rich run-off from the site. Look from the road and the public paths, and do not go into anything.
Ffrwd Fawr and the Dylife Gorge
Below the village the Afon Twymyn drops over Ffrwd Fawr into the head of the Dylife Gorge, a steep wooded cleft and one of the more dramatic pieces of landscape in Mid Wales. It is a two-stage affair: ice carved a broad U-shaped valley, and the river has since cut the narrow V-shaped slot you look into today. Glyndŵr's Way passes close by, so the fall can be reached on foot.
This is the one stop that needs proper footwear and care with children: the ground above the fall is steep and slippery, with none of the barriers or steps of a managed beauty spot. Park clear of the road, not on the verge above the gorge.
Y Star Inn, and the far end of the road
Dylife has one great practical asset: Y Star Inn, which describes itself as one of the highest pubs in Wales and offers food, en-suite rooms and hillside glamping pods. It lists opening on Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 5pm, Friday and Saturday from midday to 9.30pm and Sunday midday to 5.30pm, with food finishing earlier — but this is a remote pub on a mountain road, so telephone before building a lunch around it.
East of Dylife the road runs past Staylittle to Llyn Clywedog, the 615-acre reservoir built between 1963 and 1967 to regulate the River Severn. Its dam is 72 metres high, the tallest concrete dam in the United Kingdom, and directly beneath the wall stand the free-to-visit ruins of the Bryn-tail lead and barytes works, a scheduled monument in Cadw's care. Ospreys nest near the lake in summer and red kites are a regular sight along the whole route.
What the driving is actually like
The road is narrowest and steepest on the Machynlleth side, where it climbs out of the Dulas and Dyfi country in pulls with blind crests. Passing places are frequent enough but need using early: whichever driver is nearer one gives way, and on a blind rise it is better to wait than to meet somebody in the middle. Cattle grids come without much warning, and lambs run to whichever parent is on the far verge.
Gradients are nothing like the 1 in 4 of Bwlch y Groes, but single track, unfenced sheep and twenty miles without a garage still rule the road out for a towed caravan or a large motorhome. Low sun is a real hazard on an east–west moorland road in winter, and ice sits in the shaded dips long after the valley has thawed. Motorcyclists and cyclists use it too; give them room.
Practical information
Allow the best part of a morning each way with stops, and a full day for a circuit returning through Llanidloes and Caersws. There is no bus along the mountain road, so this is a car, motorcycle or bicycle route only — the getting around page covers what public transport does reach. Machynlleth has a filling station near the railway station; Llanidloes is the next fuel of any kind.
Check the forecast before you go: the tops carry far more rain and wind than the town, as our weather page explains, and cloud on the moor removes the whole reason for the drive. In snow and ice the road is best avoided altogether — Powys County Council's crews cover around 1,400 km on each run county-wide, which is no promise about a single-track mountain lane. Our practical driving guide has more on winter and vehicle limits.
Day trips