Letter from Gwaen Gynfi

Judith Kaufmann

Larksong to the left. Larksong to the right. It is almost the only sound this morning, standing fresh in the air against the still smouldering of last week’s heath fire on Moelyci.

It was time, as fires on the mountain are not really allowed after March when ground-nesting birds start breeding.

I am on my way to work, and hearing the rising columns of sound that the invisible bird gifts me this morning make the pedalling easier.

I’ve cycled along where the old waste tips in the woods blow ice-cold air into the road (local legend says there’s an underground lake), up the steep hill past yr Ocar where I didn’t notice the mill pond that lies unmilled since the Felin Fawr quarry works closed, past the bookstop, a bus shelter where people swap and share books.

Quarry machinery

I have reached the top lane over to Deiniolen and the skylark has replaced the roaring of the quarry machinery in the distance.

There’s another birdsong following me, just over the wall to the left where the moor opens behind the waterworks towards Marchlyn Mawr.

The eye catches the latest expansion of the Penrhyn quarry that has bought them another five years of blasting slate from y Fronllwyd.

Muddy-looking rays of sunshine dive down from the clouds to the reservoir. Don’t mess with our drinking water, I think. Then I realise that the trydar of that bird is nothing more than the breeze finding a way through my helmet straps.

Half the mountain is black. Between the road and the stone wall that follows its line a couple of hundred yards higher up, the whole field coloured in as carefully as for painting by numbers.

Seven months ago, heather dyed this hillside in honey-sweet purple.

In the afternoon the little road can be almost busy, cars having to let each other pass in slightly wider places, but this morning I have it to myself.

With its steep ascents and descents, it is not the easiest route to Llanberis by bike, but the deliciousness of the morning air that fills my lungs and reddens my cheeks, and the feeling of freedom before a day at work energise me. And the skylark draws a broad smile between my ears.

Exposed

Gwaen Gynfi is a lonely place. From my saddle I cannot see the sodden path through the moor that is now marked as Snowdonia Slate Trail, best wandered in ice and snow when you can leap from one frozen tussock to the next.

And even though it’s just next to one of the busiest industrial works of the area and at the edge of one of the most popular mountain ranges in Wales, the moor feels exposed to the brutality of the sun and the wind, with only the occasional waymarker indicating the route between Bethesda and Llanberis.

After passing the highest point of the road, I notice how much the conifers have grown again since that part of plantation was clearfelled, and wonder whether it was replanted or regrew from seed. A congregation of Christmas trees for some time soon.

On my way home in the afternoon, I struggle a bit more with my legs and lungs, even though I pushed a few times up the Fachwen lane from Llyn Padarn, but I am grateful that temperatures are rising and no longer make breathing difficult.

No car drive can unwind the mind as an hour or so in fresh air, spiced by the odd seasonal discovery like unfurling Hawthorn leaves or fattening blackthorn buds in the hedges.

I am constantly reminded what an extractive, noisy landscape this is. Purple-black waste tips, uniform roof colour imposed in Gwynedd.

Grey-green rock faces that glint in mild sun like glass under water. The often tumbling crawiau slate fences with their strobelight shadows.

But with my head in the air and work left behind, I know that there is tranquility here too, as long as the skylark sings.