Mynydd Marchywel 417m, Neath/Port Talbot area, South Wales.
Well this is definitely the worse Marilyn I have done to date and the worse hike I have had in many a year. I always do a bit of research but could only find only one review on this hill and only one route gpx file. It is simply put not popular at all. The review did not read well and the gpx route did not bode well for me either and I would use it as a rough guide only. I knew I was going into a big forest area and the route was taking short cuts to avoid long treks on forestry trails and gambled a bit that it 'might' be an okay route…ummm wrong!
Mynydd Marchywel is the top most point of a hill that is surrounded by Crynant forestry which is rather a large woodland to say the least. There is a forestry track to get reasonably close to the top but nothing that obvious and it seemed a very long tedious trek to just follow forestry tracks so hence the route taken was a bit of a gamble to save some time. From the word off I found footpath markings on the map that were wrong in the first two km's. The latter being before I even got into the forestry and even these footpaths were very boggy at this lower level. I was soon to find out that forestry tracks that were marked on the map were not on the ground (as often is the case) but this time even major ones. The short cuts I took to shave time off were in the main purgatory and I had many a battle with a tree, forded steep sided hidden streams and often sank knee deep in basically a boggy morass commonly referred to in Wales as 'shite'. The only saving grace was that after about 8-9ks I came out on a major forestry track that passed by the main summit cone that is about a further 60-70m in vertical height gain. Here there was even a footpath that took me straight up to the forestry enshrouded top. This path enters the forestry and after 3-4 minutes there is a tiny clearing and then you have the trig point....yippeee!
Right that was half the battle done but there was no way I was going to go back into the forest so I continued heading south and downhill. After coming out of the forest I even crossed some fields (funny enough even these were a boggy mess) and headed generally West downhill on really quite diabolical terrain. Any fence line or wall I followed was a bog and on occasions I sank up to my knees. I eventually found a forestry track used by those monster tree shredding machines but guess what, this too was a boggy mess...seriously after 1k I gave up because I got to one part and I seriously thought I would get stuck in this gunk. Anyway I made my way across country and guess what, yes it was a bog, at some stages I was up to my knees again. Eventually I found my way back to the outer edge of civilisation, saw some humans who could have quite easily got bit parts in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and lo and behold I was on a tarmac road….heaven! However to finish off the day I was attacked by a giant pointer dog, albeit muzzled and on a lead...yes madam, when your dog leaps at me and tries to bite my head off while he is wearing a leather gum shield, sorry does not really cut it! I then made myself scarce and turned off and got to my van twenty minutes later...and guess what, when I was sat in the side door of my van praying for deliverance who did I happen to bump into, fido and dog woman again...say no more! Not the best of days but in a macabre way I enjoyed it because nothing went right and it was actually very funny!
Car Parking and access: There is a sizeable car park at the start location of this gpx route. It is used for resident parking as well but this was mid week and not that busy.
Route Summary: A tedious irritating forestry hike ascent and soul sapping boggy decent. 15.5kms. 593m height gain in a fun 4hrs and 10mins.
To finish off I would say two things: 1. USE THIS GPX ROUTE AT YOUR OWN PERIL :-) and 2. Do this hill in summer!
GPX files: For gpx files go to the Peakbagger website by following these links and go to the bottom right hand of the page and click ‘Download this GPS track as a GPX file.’
Ascent Entry - Mynydd Marchywel
There is ample parking at the start....
It started off promising enough, albeit boggy....
Even here at the lower level it was not the best of paths....
This was a good section of the forest....
After coming out of the forest at around 8-9k there are some views...
This is the 'summit' hump of Marchywel. This forestry track passes close to the right hand side of the hump where there is a bit of a path/stream bed that goes straight up to the trig point. Follow this, there is no other easy way to the top....
The trig point...
I came in on a path that follows the white gap/dotted black lines in the forest north of the trig point...
An easy part of the downhill....
Seriously this is impassable and the ground is a swamp. Here I had to make away across country...
I know I shouldn't laugh because you evidently had an horrendous hike, but your blog was funny, David. This is clearly one place to avoid in the winter, but I wonder if it's as bad to hike it in the summer!