Ysgyryd Fawr (SO 33118 18283; 486m)

13 July

Start Point: National Trust car park on S side of hill

Distance and Ascent: 4.6km, 290m 

Weather: sunny and hot (30 degrees), but with some fluffy clouds appearing as I reached the ridge (none blocked the sun). 

I'd read that the car park for this hill - a sizeable one, suggesting that this is a popular hill - can get full by mid-morning on a sunny weekend. That there are double yellow lines on the road outside also suggests that parking can be an issue. The saving factor today was that few people want to haul themselves up a hill in 30 degree heat, so we arrived at 2pm to find just a handful of other vehicles. 

I considered leaving the hill until evening, but the weather forecast suggested that it was going to stay warm for so long, that going immediately was the better option. 

The first part of the climb is shaded in the trees and once out of the trees, I caught a breeze up on the ridge, so it wasn't uncomfortable. It was also an easy climb, with an engineered path on the lower reaches, and a solid trodden line higher up. 

Even so, I didn't speed along, happy to take it at a steady pace and take in the extensive views. 

According to my plan, this was the third hill of my first day of bagging on this trip. However, having arrived here on such a warm afternoon, I opted to just do an easy out-and-back today, saving the other two for a linear walk tomorrow, when the forecast is cooler. So, having reached the summit, I turned around and came back down again.  

As I've mentioned before, Mick only joins me on Marilyns when he considers the hill has merit. I have high hopes that all (maybe bar 1) of those pencilled in for this week meet his definition of 'merit', making it rather a shame that his poorly back is precluding him from doing anything beyond gentle ambling (not that he would have been able to join me on all of the tops, if he's also to facilitate me doing some linear routes, but I had also planned the logistics so that there would be plenty of opportunity).