Today began badly. I set out to clilmb Mynydd Machen from Machen. I parked by the church. A footpath goes up behind it which I followed uphill for a bit till it crosses a track. Here I met a sign. Forestry working. Footpath closed. Authorised Personnel Only. Oh well. I looked at the map. There looked to be another way, Instead of heading straight up I could follow the track round to the right past a place called Bovil and climb the hill a bit further east. So I set off. After about five minutes I came to another sign. Forestry working. Footpath closed. Authorised Personnel Only. I gave up and went to find another hill to climb.
I drove to Upper Cwmbran and parked near a church in a car park where a path heads off up to Blaen Bran Reservoir. In fact there are lots of paths. It was pretty busy – this is evidently where Cwmbran comes to walk its dog. And it was beautifully sunny with snow on the ground up here if not at sea level. I wended my way up past the ruin of Mineslope Mine and past the reservoir where a track led up the steep slopes onto the plateau, a big sunny snowy wilderness with a big line of electricity pylons, leaving the dog walkers behind. Turning right and following these led me eventually to a couple of transmission masts and a track leading right from here led to the summit trig point of Mynydd Twyn-glas. I climbed back down to the reservoir a bit further north on a rather steep rather vague path but was soon down among the dog walkers again.
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