There’s something about Boxing Day walks that make them more memorable. Or any walks in that period between Christmas and New Year I guess (I could call it Twixtmas or Chrimbo Limbo, but won’t!) – when the stress of present-buying and turkey-roasting is over, our heads are free of work-related issues and officialdom (for those of us lucky to enjoy a good break) and plans for the new year are taking shape with a clarity of thought that’s free of interruptions.  

One such walk, a challenging hike over the frozen Glyderau, and an icy Cribin still comes to mind clearly many years later, but equally so does a group walk back in 2006, leading 8 of us through a very-misty Coed Llandegla (Llandegla Forest), over Cyrn y Brain, to the Ponderosa Café for a very welcome warm-up before heading back.

This year, in kinder weather with temperatures almost 10 degrees higher, and better visibility, I retraced most of that previous walk for a pudding-burning 12 km and some great views.

Cyrn y Brain is the 2^nd highest point (behind Moel y Gamelin) in the Clwydian Range & Dee Valley AONB. There’s 3 cairns on the top (the name means ‘Cairns of the Crows’) – the first one has the remains of a tower built by one of the Williams-Wynns, and a trig point, but it’s the third one (near the second radio mast, coming from Llandegla direction) which is the high point of the hill at 565 metres and, as well as the views towards Moel Famau and the Clwydians, gives views towards the Horseshoe Pass and the Berwyn beyond.  

It helps to have some basic map skills to navigate your way through the forest, but if you’ve got those, and if you’re looking for a decent leg-stretch, with a bit of solitude (on some of the moorland parts at least) without being too far from civilisation, give it a go?

All day parking is available at Oneplanet Adventure, Coed Llandegla, LL11 3AA (where there’s a shop and café), for £5.

(At quieter times, there may be room to park for free in the lay-by where you turn off the main road. A bridleway runs from there past Pendinas to Pendinas Reservoir, and you can pick up the track from there).

A plethora of cycle and walking trails have been created in the forest, but these don’t appear on Ordnance Survey maps, so it’s best to ignore them, and to simplify the navigation by following the wider and longer-established vehicle tracks and public rights of way that are on the map.

There’s a forest track that runs for about 2.6 km through the higher part of the forest, and the simplest route is to take that, until you reach Offa’s Dyke Path, then follow that to where it leaves the forest onto the open mountain at Grid ref SJ 225 502, where you can pick up the path to Cyrn y Brain.

Or for a shorter walk, requiring very little navigation, you could park opposite the Ponderosa Café at the top of Bwlch yr Oernant (the Horseshoe Pass), and just follow the track behind the café to Cyrn y Brain and the radio masts from there!