This summit always appeared in my road atlas to be within "striking distance".  It wasn't - it was 85 miles away.  No problem, that's still as short a run as I get to a SOTA summit this end of the year.  Everyone talks about going up from the south, by the waterfall and Llyn Lluncaws, and the vertigo-inducing sheer edge by one's walking boots, with the rumour of beginnings of a more "inland" track.

I checked out the 1:25,000 OS Explorer map, and wondered what all the fuss was about.  What did I see, but a permissive footpath starting as high as 480m ASL on the B4391 WSW of the summit.  A six-mile boring boggy plod to the summit, offering hardly any gradient or excitement - PERFECT!

Jimmy and I set off from Macc at 6.40am, hit the M56, had breakfast at the McDonalds on the A483 near Chirk and then went past Oswestry and turned right into the B4396.  As this road became the B4391, it bore right (NW) and continued to climb.  Where the border between Powys and Denbighshire is signed on the road (SJ 017 305), the permissive path appeared on the right, but as a vehicle track.  I drove my vehicle up it and around into a parking area, usefully hidden from the road.  From here, we climbed up the grass bank and set off across the gently rising moor.

   

It was refreshing to be doing a long horizontal (almost) walk for SOTA as opposed to a short steep one!  The first third of the walk was made very easy by the provision of meshed boardwalks, before the squidgy boggy paths became dominant.  After about two hours, we reached the summit of Moel Sych 827m ASL.  We continued straight up to Cadair Berwyn, and it's large stone shelter.  Out of it we could see a SOTA pole sticking out, and then a SOTA Beam.  We investigated further, and it was none other than Shirley MC0RCH / MW0YLS with students Sam 2W0UPT and Sam 2W0IBA.  With this, we decided to use the trig point at 827m ASL a little further north, and within the activation area, as our operating position.  I worked 17 stations, all on 2m FM, including summit-to-summit with Keith GW0OXV/P on Cyrn-y-Brain GW/NW-043, Ian G7ADF/P on Shining Tor G/SP-004 and Roger MW0IDX/P on Moel Ysgyfarnogod GW/NW-038.