• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Last Exit To Tal Y Bont

oldrover

oldrover

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Oct 18, 2009
Messages
4,056
This has to have a rational explanation but I can't think of it.

Twice in the last few months I've driven up from the south to Snowdonia, instead of going direct up through the middle I prefer to take a more westerly scenic route part of which is on a road which passes right by Plynlimon and the Nant Y Moch reservoir, and on past a little lake called Llyn Nantycagal;

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=llyn+n ... TF-8&hl=en

If you look at the location via the link and scroll up and to the left a tiny bit you'll see that the road, roughly running NNW meets another running WSW-ENE. When I first decided to take this road back in April and checked the satellite map, the best route for me appeared to be to the right (ENE). When I was actually there though, a little way up the right hand turning I met a couple of forestry workers who told me that it wasn't a good idea to try this road without a 4 wheel drive and that it was much better for me, my car has all the ground clearance of a pot hole, to turn around and head back down the road and carry on down as if I'd turned left (WSW). I did this and it was fine.

Last Monday I returned there took the one and only road up past the mountain and the reservoir, past the little lake ready to turn off, but there was no road to the left. I assumed that it was a bit further on than I remembered so I carried on until I saw the place I’d met the forestry guys last time. There was no left turn. I assumed I’d missed it, even though as the satellite photo shows this is pretty much impossible, and turned around drove the road again, still no trace.

Eventually I thought I must have taken another road a few hundred yards further back, I tried this road and soon realised that not only was it the wrong road but it was impassable in my car, without risking serious damage.

Got home last night and checked on the satellite, the road that was there in April, should have been exactly where I remember it but there was absolutely no trace, and I’m mean that literally, and believe me I checked. If you do look at the link put the little guy onto the cross roads and look down the road toward the WSW, you’ll see that for this to completely disappear in just over three months is not really conceivable.

My mother was in the car with me both times and was at the time, as now, as mystified as I am.
 
So it was the road you took that disappeared? :shock:

Where did it come out? If it was an alternate route for the right-turn, do both lead to roughly the same place? Can you try looking for it on that end?
 
Very interesting story. In April the road existed and you used it, and you've the corroboration of your mother. In July it doesn't exist! Sounds like a bleeding through of alternate realities... or intense erosion (given recent weather that's almost believable).

Just to be clear, was this a metalled B road? Or more of a track like this? Can you provide a Street View link to where you met the forestry workers?

Couple of interesting things. I was using the OS GetAMap service to look at the area. Firstly, in 'ZoomMap' mode, as you zoom in it clearly shows a road going NE to New Pool - until the 2KM scale when it disappears! Flipping to the 'Liesure' mode, so you're looking at a view of the Landranger 1:50,000 map (sheet 135), the track is shown with dashed lines, denoting 'Other road, drive or track...'

Heres a screenshot (almost certainly © Crown Copyright :D )

Looks a rough ride.

And when you launch GetAMap it shows the UK. I roughly clicked south of Snowdon and started zooming in. Where I'd clicked was right next to Llyn Nantycagal. :shock:
 
So it was the road you took that disappeared?

Where did it come out? If it was an alternate route for the right-turn, do both lead to roughly the same place? Can you try looking for it on that end?
Click to expand...

Yes it was the road I took back in late April, that had vanished. Which is the left turn at the T junction just above the little lake. It came out on the A487, as do the other roads from there. The missing one though was the only one my car could safely cope with though. As I say I did try the left turn before where the road should have been but had to turn back.

The road is about a three hour drive from the house, so I doubt I'll be going up there for a few weeks.

Very interesting story. In April the road existed and you used it, and you've the corroboration of your mother. In July it doesn't exist! Sounds like a bleeding through of alternate realities... or intense erosion (given recent weather that's almost believable).
Click to expand...


special_farces erosion is what I'd like to come up with but the trouble is there wasn't any trace of the road at all, seriously not even a hint. Where it should have carried on to the left it was just one continuous unbroken drive to the right, no traces of anything on the sides that I spotted.

As to whether it was a metalled road, as far as I remember there was a lot of loose gravel at the junction, but, and I didn't realise this until I checked the street view again, the missing left turn is the same metalled road that runs all the way up from the A44 at Pontywerd. What looks like a T junction is actually where the right turn side road joins it on a bend. So this means it's the last section of the main through road that's missing.

As to where I met the Forestry men, going by the Landranger map it roughly where the sign 'old mines' is written just above the figure 482 and Castell is written. On the street view it's roughly where the gate is just where the trees start on the right hand road. It doesn't look exactly like that now though as those particular trees have been felled.

I really don't get this but there must be a rational explanation.
 
Maybe it's a peat bog that slipped across the road because of all the rain?

In Ireland, it's not unheard-of for an entire sheet of peat to just slide off onto a road.
 
oldrover said:
I really mean this, thank you that's been bugging the hell out of me. It's petty boring conservatives like you that make this site what it is.
Click to expand...

I aim to please. :D
 
Yep. I think this is the street view of the junction where you turned right and eventually met the workers.

And is this a shot looking along the road in question? A landslip off the hill would cover the road easily. Or at a stretch material coming down the valley from the north.

Then again... it would have to be a lot of material to cover the road... and it would probably look like disturbed earth rather than a neat cap of bog and grass... and wouldn't there be a diversion sign up, as a major landslip would be reported...

Anyone in that part of Wales who could nip over to have a look?
 
Yes to all those, also it would have been a few weeks ago now meaning that with the conditions we have here, especially this year, enough time for fast growing stuff to pop up and make it seem that it had always been that way.

It would need a lot of material but then again going by the news reports, which I'd have missed as I'm normally in work, it was really severe up there. Also I's assume that the source of the floods would have been in the high ground exactly where the road is.

One obvious course of action strikes me, i.e, ring Ceredigion council come Monday and ask them if the road was wiped out.
 
No that's Talybont on Usk in Powys where the Taliban are mostly, this is the one in Ceridigion.

Still easy mistake to make.
 
oldrover said:
No that's Talybont on Usk in Powys where the Taliban are mostly, this is the one in Ceridigion.

Still easy mistake to make.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, the Taliban who attack English speakers.
 
It's a remote and confusing part of the world despite only being a few miles off the beaten track. My late missus and I had a great picnic somewhere up around Cwmystwyth a few miles to the south. We were out for an aimless drive around on one of those sunny days we used to get, but having failed to note where we were on the map we were never able to find the exact spot again despite there apparently being only two possible roads it could be on.

I'm not suggesting anything Fortean, just that its a part of the world it is easy to get muddled about directions in, and of course the Forestry Comission tend to make big changes when they harvest an area which is a bit disorienting.
 
That explains why the RAF are always zipping around there - it's not practice flights!
Click to expand...

Exactly, I had a Mad Maxesque moment up there with some of the locals that resulted in the death of a pheasant. Funny bloody place, not like the mainland which is lovely.

Cochise there really aren't many roads up there pretty much the Aberystwyth Rhayader road and that it. Which is lovely as I'm sure you know.

What you say reminds me of a trip my ex wife and I took onto the Black Mountain (as opposed to The Black Mountains). We drove up there took a side road and ended up down a little road which brought us up to a large house in a little wood. All throughout which there were albino Peacocks wandering. Never managed to find it again even though I drive that mountain regularly.
 
We were somewhere up around here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_B ... 523585.jpg

It was a nice Forestry Comission type picnic area, not just a pull-off by the side of the road. But we were, as I say, pottering around back roads on a sunny day, so didn't pay much attention. I'm irresponsible like that as far as the UK is concerned, working on the baisis that it is too small a country to actually get lost in I'll just drive up a road because it looks interesting :)
 
That's a lovely looking bit of road I'll pop up thee when I'm next up that way.
 
this could potentially solve a few transdimensional gas station style accounts ! landslides rather than timeslips ...
 
I live in Aberystwyth and, over the last 2 years, I've spent almost every Saturday in the area between Ponterwyd and Tal-y-bont.

I probably drive this particular stretch of road at least once a fortnight, so I'd like to help you clear this up if possible.

The stretch of the road which runs from Ponterwyd past Nant-y-moch to Tal-y-bont, passing south of Llyn Nantycagl is the only one passable in my 10 year old hatchback. Although it seems like there's a T-junction-style turning on the section of map you posted, I wouldn't describe is as such. The tarmac, hatchback-friendly road bends around SE to SW and what appears to be the right hand turn at the T junction (running SW to NE and passing north of Llyn Nantycagl) is the start of a rough, gravel track which leads to Forestry Commission land. As the Forestry guys said, it's the kind of road which should only be attempted with a 4x4.

I was last up there on Saturday 7th July and I drove that road all the way from Pontwerwyd to Tal-y-bont. I didn't notice anything odd about it.

I'm pretty sure I'll be up there again on that road this coming Sunday and I'd be happy to take and post some current photos if they'd help?
 
Frank, I’ve read through your post a good few times now, just to make sure I’m not mistaking what you say, and I’m in no doubt that we’re talking about the same place.

I was last up there on Saturday 7th July and I drove that road all the way from Pontwerwyd to Tal-y-bont. I didn't notice anything odd about it.
Click to expand...

I was up there five days before you and there was literally no trace. As I said I drove it on the 23/04/12 and went through to Tal Y Bont , tried the same thing on 02/07/12 and instead of it bearing left toward the A487 it just turned into, as in became, the forestry track. You know the road Frank, you know that you couldn’t miss it. I even drove up the forestry track for a bit, turned round and crawled back the other way, no sign.

I’d have settled for a landslide as the only possible explanation, but if you’re driving along the bloody thing on the weekends then that’s that out the window.

I'm pretty sure I'll be up there again on that road this coming Sunday and I'd be happy to take and post some current photos if they'd help?
Click to expand...

Mate I’m bloody confused as to what happened to me up there, if you would take some photos when you next pass I’d be really, really grateful.

Thanks.
 
That area exerts such a powerful influence on me that I find myself going back there every weekend without really knowing why. I just know I have to spend a few hours walking out there to feel right with the world.

Having spent all that time out there, it would not surprise me in the least if it were the location for high strangeness of the type you describe. First time I visited the area around Llyn Nantycagl, I got lost a very long way back in the Forestry land from the road. Around sunset. In late October. As I was beginning to panic, I stumbled into a thick stand of pines and went up to my knees in a bog. That awakened some pretty primal fears in me, I can tell you :lol: I'll never forget that evening.

I'll very much enjoy grabbing those pics for you as soon as possible, and we'll see if we can get to the bottom of this.

Cheers
 
It is a very lovely place especially the Eastern arm of the lake just under Plynlimon, I can easily see why you'd want to spend time there. I'd like to go there more, shifting roads aside, but it's too far to get to regularly.


Around sunset. In late October. As I was beginning to panic, I stumbled into a thick stand of pines and went up to my knees in a bog. That awakened some pretty primal fears in me, I can tell you I'll never forget that evening.
Click to expand...

I know that feeling, I once got disorientated in the mist on Carmarthen Fan. I came down the wrong part of the mountain and then got even more lost. I'd injured my leg so I couldn't get back up, tried making my way around the bottom in about 150' of visibility. At which point I hoped into a bog I'd been warned about, it's not a nice feeling is it.
 
HenryFort said:
sounds like a field trip is in order ...
Click to expand...
You could do a lot worse than a couple of days in that area. The ruins of old mines and quarries to both sides of the road in question are fascinating and creepy. You can get a long way into several of the old mines in that area.

oldrover said:
It is a very lovely place especially the Eastern arm of the lake just under Plynlimon
Click to expand...
That Eastern end of Nant-y-moch is very remote indeed and, if you go a mile or two north up the trail from Maesnant, you get some stunning views of the northern slopes of Pumlumon across Glyndwr's battlefield at Hyddgen.

oldrover said:
At which point I hoped into a bog I'd been warned about, it's not a nice feeling is it.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a scary day you had there! The combination of fear and sucking mud definitely isn't nice at the time, but I find the first pint of the evening tastes even better!

I'll see if I can get some video as I drive along the road on Sunday. That will probably be more useful than photographs.

Cheers
 
sounds like a field trip is in order ...
Click to expand...

As Frank says I'd definitely recommend the place, it is wonderful up there. I woke up this morning and thought sod it I'll go back there, especially as the weather was so nice. As in nice and sunny, nice and sunny and clear.I don't usually use emoticons but :oops:.

The solution to this comes down to the two most basic cock ups made by spanners like me if you let them loose in the mountains. Firstly an inability to judge distances, an inability to stay orientated in mist. And also one of the main problems with people who think they may have experienced something uncanny, a distorted recollection of the events.

Without the ability to show the where's and whys of the cock up as it unfolded it's a bit difficult to explain. But basically I seriously misjudged the distance between the lake and the turn in the road. Mistook one bend for another. And crucially from the point I gave up and turned round, especially in the mist, it looked like the road led only a short way to the point where I'd spoken to the forestry workers a few months ago, whereas in fact the road looped around a fair way before turning back. Meaning that I missed about quarter of a mile of it.

Anyway though even if the roads aren't mysterious the whole place is still fantastic and somewhere I'm going to keep returning to every time I head up north.
 
Glad you solved the riddle, both for your own peace of mind and because I now don't have to post the video which shows how dirty my car windscreen is! :lol: Nice day for a road trip up there on Friday.

Mist changes a lot in that area. On a misty day last year, despite thinking I was heading North in a straight line, I managed to walk an almost perfect circle.

Pleased to hear you'll keep going back. The more we all use it, the less chance there is of them one day deciding to build luxury flats up there ;)
 
Mist changes a lot in that area. On a misty day last year, despite thinking I was heading North in a straight line, I managed to walk an almost perfect circle.
Click to expand...

It's funny in this day of sat navs and mobile phones with god knows what apps on them, the thing I'm starting to really want is a compass.

Still like to see the video though, as I won't see it in real life again till October.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top