benshannon
Active member
I stumbled upon sidetrack on youtube and it looks awesome. has anyone got a survey because i cant find one and my COPD is too old.
thanks
thanks
Topimo said:There is a bolt or two to do the abseil from. From memory a short rope (15m?) will suffice. You'll want a rope protector (old bag or carpet) for the edge, and it's all a little loose - beware of the person below you.
If you're really paranoid then rig direct to the anchors to make it harder for passers by to tamper with your rigging, worst case you could freeclimb back up if you had to.
"Au cheval" entrance crawl, and some cave bacon...enjoy.
pwhole said:It may be nothing, but last year when I visited Convenience, I had a wander round the quarry afterwards and had a look at the vein that Windle And Rush mine used to be on, in the SW corner. I didn't realise that there's the remains of a stope cutting the quarry face at an acute angle, with shotholes, pickwork, slickensides and traces of galena still attached. Given the workings at Windle and Rush went very, very deep and supposedly intersected the stream from the Coalpithole swallow on its way to Peak-Speedwell, it's an interesting area. The quarry floor itself was totally flat and backfilled, and the main shaft is long gone, but it did occur to me there might be a slim chance of finding a way into workings via the remaining vein exposure.
I'm not planning on trying, but I thought I'd just throw that in
AR said:Windle and Rush vein is at the Sidetrack end of the quarry, Jim. Incidentally, I overlaid the 1898 OS onto Google Earth several years ago and it put the location of the main shaft on the upper bench, a bit further along from Sidetrack - has anyone ever had a good look at the boulder pile there?
Big Jim said:Phil, d'ya mean that natural looking wall (with slickensides ) to the right of Convenience as you face south? I always wondered if that was the rift in Nervous Breakdown that the Orpheus entered back in the 70's (I think) when the quarry was still working. I'm sure they described it as ending in a low crawl that ended in a choked passage or similar which was possibly the start of what is now Convenience. I used to have a copy of the Nervous Breakdown report but god knows where it is. Pete Wagstaff or Jenny Potts may have it and there may be more clues in that report of you can get a copy.