Ceiriog valley loop

A delightful ten mile outing through the obscure hills to the north of Dyffryn Ceiriog. I have done the Ceiriog Canter (up Vivod) from Glyn Ceiriog before, but this morning I took the extremely steep lane of Ty'n y Cestyll to emerge on the Nantyr road. This is a very nice lane between the Berwyn ridge on the right, and the Ceiriog valley below, and it leads to a sharp turn to an obvious bridleway marked Whitestones on the OS map. This is steep in places, effectively a pass between Bryn Du and Tomen y Gwyddel, very rough underfoot and sadly used by off-road motorbikes, several of which roared past as I ran. It leads all the way down to Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, where I had a 30 second glimpse of an unfamiliar orange orb in the sky. After 600m of elevation over the tops, I then really enjoyed the long valley run back to Glyn Ceiriog via Tregeiriog and Pandy.