In view of the forecast for heavy rain (95% chance said the Met Office) and strong winds between 11am and 7pm today, I decided I'd just do two hills - one early, and one late. Tor y Foel wasn't the one I'd intended for my early one, but it got substituted for logistical reasons. With the late substitution I hadn't found somewhere to park Bertie, but that proved not to be a problem, with road signs pointing us towards the Village Hall.
It was a matter of laziness that caused me to walk the road, rather than taking the Taff Trail, to access the hill, and after a few minutes of rain immediately after setting off, it stayed dry until just about the moment I needed to leave the road and push my way through some tall bracken.
A tiny dead-end lane took me to the hill. It was more like a track if I stuck to the middle.
Fortunately the bracken patch wasn't large and I was soon making my way up a trodden line through grass. I also felt fortunate that the (westerly) wind was sideways on, although thinking about it now had it been a southerly wind, I would have been sheltered by the hill and thus now blown around so much.
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The wind on the way up was stiff. On the summit it was of the level where you can lean right into it and it will support your weight. I contemplated not visiting the ground 130m away from the high point that's apparently 1.5m lower, but having been caught out enough times by summits moving, I made the effort. Getting there was no effort; getting back against the wind was.
Back down at the road, if I'd simply retraced my steps, I would have been back at Bertie in half an hour, but as there was an obvious circuit to be made (the aforementioned Taff Trail) I crossed straight over the road, fought my way through another patch of bracken and found myself at a fence. I knew the path down here wasn't a Public Right of Way, but the fence was easily step-overable and after only a few seconds of scouting around I squeezed through a gap into some woodland and found a good trodden line.
If the path hadn't been steeply downhill, then when I reached the first patch of tangled bracken laced with brambles I probably would have turned back to take the road after all. As it was I convinced myself that all would be well and I picked my way slowly through, trying not to catch my waterproofs on the brambles. After about a week and a half of slowly picking my way down (and there were good sections without any impediment) I thought I must be nearly at the PRoW, but found that I was less than half way. And the whole way was only 400m! The only good thing I can say about this route choice was that whilst I was fully sheltered by the tree canopy, it was pouring down outside.
I'd like to say that things got better when I got to the tramway (Taff Trail), and I suppose that they did, but I was expecting easy going from there, whereas I found an uneven surface and a narrow, overgrown line. Then I came upon this:
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Obviously I checked the closure notice carefully, but it was all valid and in date.
At least the diversion didn't look outrageously long (unlike the time when I came across a 14km diversion due to a 100m path closure), even if it was initially going to send me off in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go. Arriving at the turn I thought I needed to take, I went to look at the photo I'd taken of the diversion route, only to find that I had failed to take any such photo. I took the turn, and all was well until I reached a gate, topped with barbed wire and with a clear and polite notice telling me I could proceed no further. It was at this point that I zoomed in on my map and realised I'd seen/imagined a PRoW where there was in fact none. There was, however, a gate to my left and there seemed to be a trodden line across that field and I thought I could see a stile in the bottom corner, even though it's not on a Right of Way. Thankfully that all worked out and I didn't have to backtrack and add another 1.5km onto my outing.
The onward path along the river was quite pleasant and with just a little tarmac I was deposited back in the middle of Talybont.
Allt yr Esgair (SO 12615 24361; 393m)
The forecast of a 95% chance of heavy rain continuously from 11am to 7pm didn't match the reality of a few light and relatively brief showers, so at 3.30pm I thought I may as well head off up my second hill ... just as another shower hit. Like those that came before it, it was light and short-lived.
A nice series of old green lanes took me up onto the ridge, from where I had a choice - to follow a path along the ridge or one lower down that would join the ridge further along. Despite the wind, I opted for the former. On the plus side the bracken that had collapsed across my choice of path wasn't laced with brambles nor studded with gorse. On the down side, it was sodden. Even so, it was a relatively pleasant walk along to the summit, where I had no doubt there would be stunning views on a clear day.
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At the junction of the ridge/lower path, I hesitated. Given this morning's experience of taking a different path on the return leg, there was merit in sticking with the devil I knew. It turned out there was even more merit in trying something new: the lower path had not a single stalk of bracken on it and all gorse was off to the side. Other than that minor deviation, it was a simple retracing of steps.
Just one other observation about this route: every single gate I went through had the same style of latch (one of those with a stalk going up to the top of the gate, with a ring shape at the top). It really does make things easier when you don't have to go through a new 'how does this gate open' exercise at every gate!
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