December 4, 2016
So. . . Dolgoch. If you remember, this was the waterfall hike I did (or thought I did) in September. Determined to make the most of a lovely sunny, brisk day where I didn't want to drive too far - as we had an epic drive to Sicily looming - I headed back to see where I'd gone wrong.
Not the North Pole, but still pretty dark
And there was where I made my first mistake - thinking that because it was a sunny day it would be a great day to go to the waterfalls. You see, Dolgoch sits in a valley on the north side of a hill. It being December, and Wales being at the equivalent of Canadian latitudes, the sun barely peeks over the hill in winter.
So, my only companions on this dark and chilly hike were a Santa Claus and his elf who must have been coming from a holiday party. Although I only saw him from afar, Santa looked like he was drinking a can of cider.
There's a lot more to this Trail than I realized
Anyhow, I won't start placing blame on the good people who say this trail is obvious so doesn't need signs, because. . . Because they are absolutely right. I literally don't know how I couldn't see that the trail kept going - at the top of the second waterfall there's a bridge that crosses the waterfall and a trail that goes back down - but there's also a very, very obvious trail that continues up alongside the river. I must be blind.
So, yes, this easy to see for anyone paying even the remotest bit of attention section of the trail leads past several more cute wooden bridges with their names carved in them and poems written by local schoolchildren on signs nearby. As the trail does a switchback you can see a truly large thin waterfall, unfortunately my pictures don't give the appropriate scale.
After the switchback is the steepest part, some stone steps that continue on the edge of the steeply sloping valley until you hit a final bridge and the final set of falls and frothing basins. Because there weren't any leaves on the trees - I could also see even farther up to the top of the east facing hill - and what looked like several even more massive sets of waterfalls feeding the ones in front of me.
But that land further up was clearly signposted as private, and so I just sat down on the well-placed (as always) British benches and listened to the water tumble down, in complete solitude.
Although summer would be pleasant here - I can't imagine I'll have the place to myself like this again.
