B
Barney
Guest
Just as a matter of interest, the second pitch has been re rigged, with rope protectors added. The vertical ropes have been replaced throughout (march/April 2007)
vanoord
Member
Yes and no!
- the first pitch has the original rope, which is in decent condition. Iirc it has an additional 12mm bolt as a back-up and it has now got a 'security' line along the tunnel leading up to it, which makes life a little better.
- the second big pitch has a new rope and rope protectors - it is now anchored to two massive boulders and has a back-up to a third which is bolted. These are protected in pipe and there are rope protectors on the descent, but due to the nature of the take-off, minor rub points can still be created if someone descends in a strange manner. Although it would be possible to introduce re-belays to improve this, as the trip is done by a lot of people who are not experienced at SRT it was felt that adding complexity would increase the potential risks.
- the abseil into the lake has a new rope, although the original is still in place. The new one does drop into the water, which will probably cause it to rot quite quickly, but conversely it is no longer possible to abseil off the end of the rope as was possible before - although it could be knotted, the length meant that the knot had to be removed if using a Stop in order to descend low enough so as not to drop several inches into a tiny dinghy.
One thing that may be done in the near future is the re-rigging of the traverse round the sides of the chamber with the second zip line across it (as repaired by someone from here). The chamber was originally passed using a traverse around the two sides and the back wall, but the zip wire has replaced this - the idea is to re-bolt the chamber and put to original rope from the second abseil around it in order to provide a bit more variety - and similarly to reduce the slight bottleneck.
- the first pitch has the original rope, which is in decent condition. Iirc it has an additional 12mm bolt as a back-up and it has now got a 'security' line along the tunnel leading up to it, which makes life a little better.
- the second big pitch has a new rope and rope protectors - it is now anchored to two massive boulders and has a back-up to a third which is bolted. These are protected in pipe and there are rope protectors on the descent, but due to the nature of the take-off, minor rub points can still be created if someone descends in a strange manner. Although it would be possible to introduce re-belays to improve this, as the trip is done by a lot of people who are not experienced at SRT it was felt that adding complexity would increase the potential risks.
- the abseil into the lake has a new rope, although the original is still in place. The new one does drop into the water, which will probably cause it to rot quite quickly, but conversely it is no longer possible to abseil off the end of the rope as was possible before - although it could be knotted, the length meant that the knot had to be removed if using a Stop in order to descend low enough so as not to drop several inches into a tiny dinghy.
One thing that may be done in the near future is the re-rigging of the traverse round the sides of the chamber with the second zip line across it (as repaired by someone from here). The chamber was originally passed using a traverse around the two sides and the back wall, but the zip wire has replaced this - the idea is to re-bolt the chamber and put to original rope from the second abseil around it in order to provide a bit more variety - and similarly to reduce the slight bottleneck.
vanoord
Member
I don't think there's anything particularly similar in these parts. For sure there are a few trips with interesting SRT - for example the recently opened up sections of Cwmorthin - but there's nothing that has the same combination of abseils, zip wires, bridges and dinghies that CRTT (Croesor Rhosydd Through Trip) offers...
ChrisJC
Well-known member
Of course if the standard level of excitement isn't enough, you can enter Croesor by abseiling down the 99metre shaft 
to the top of the incline instead of the wimps way of walking up the adit......
But agreed with Vanoord, although there's lots of other excitement to be had, C->R has an excellent variety.
Chris.
to the top of the incline instead of the wimps way of walking up the adit......But agreed with Vanoord, although there's lots of other excitement to be had, C->R has an excellent variety.
Chris.
Ian Adams
Active member
Have a peep on youtube and you can find a super video of the trip....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgbliEy2J-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgbliEy2J-s
cap n chris
Well-known member
Haven't got time to watch it all now but I would suggest that professionals might choose not to wear a rucksack over both shoulders when passing over deep water.
vanoord
Member
cap 'n chris said:
:
A fair comment! To be honest, anyone 'professional' would probably also draw the line at using a children's inflatable dinghy to cross an underground lake with nasty sharp slate edges, but there we are. The real issue arises when people wear rucksacks when using the zip wire: they have a nasty habit of inverting...
Life jackets are a decent idea when doing this trip, albeit I nearly set one off going through a tight squeeze by snagging the 'pull' cord.
menacer
Active member
cap 'n chris said:
Pheww Thanks for that Chris....Im really greatful for all the CIC's out there keeping a watchful eye on all us numpties....who knows what may have happened if it had all gone wrong......eg. had we tipped upside down......and the sandwiches fallen out
...we'd be left starved and hungry....we may not have made it to the exit.... Memo to self....keep sandwiches under Hat....
I suppose the ultimate way to do the trip would be to carry a rigid boat, a spare boat, a life vest, a spare life vest, a canary for bad air, a seismic detector, a ball of string, rations for 3 days, lifeline for the SRT pitches.......
Vanoord, I'd have loved to see the life jacket go off in a small space...Comedy.....
did it really nearly happen??excellent......and the boats were perfect, they may only be kids boats, but at least there were 2 back-ups should one fail.... :ang:
Brains
Well-known member
The life vest in a squeeze incident is definetely for real - made us smile at the time! The roof of the chambers was a bit more scary - one big lump that had been creking away (10 ton of it...) was on the flor when we returned 5 weeks later. The boats never seem to last long so dont rely on there being one or more there... Doing the wire on a tandem speed was a real hoot
vanoord
Member
menacer said:Pheww Thanks for that Chris....Im really greatful for all the CIC's out there keeping a watchful eye on all us numpties....who knows what may have happened if it had all gone wrong......eg. had we tipped upside down......and the sandwiches fallen out
Memo to self....keep sandwiches under Hat....
I suppose the ultimate way to do the trip would be to carry a rigid boat, a spare boat, a life vest, a spare life vest, a canary for bad air, a seismic detector, a ball of string, rations for 3 days, lifeline for the SRT pitches.......
Vanoord, I'd have loved to see the life jacket go off in a small space...Comedy.....
....and the boats were perfect, they may only be kids boats, but at least there were 2 back-ups should one fail.... :ang:
I wouldn't worry about tipping upside down so much as the falling in and drowning, pulled to your doom by the weight of the rucksack!
The floor you traverse through is A floor and the water level is just below that - the floor rises away from the incline to allow for drainage along is, thus the drop to the water increases as you get further from the adit. The chambers with the bridges over go down to C floor, about 180' below - have a look at the pic on this link: http://www.aditnow.co.uk/photo/Croesor-Slate-Mine-User-Album-Image-030/
The pic was taken in 1978, just about the time that the mine was abandoned - it has slowly flooded since then, effectively enabling the trip by bringing the water level up in the 'Chamber of Horrors'. Now then, see the bridge in the foreground? - well that's on B floor, halfway up! The bridges you crossed over are at the height of the bridge that's *just* visible in the background! So... fall in from one of those bridges and you're going to sink a long, long way
There is, of course the fact that you're on a safety line. In theory, this should prevent any unplanned swimming incidents, although I remain unconvinced as to how easily one would get out of such a predicament as dangling upside-down beneath a bridge - although I guess it's better than the alternative...
Back in the old days, I read a rather interesting comment to the effect that while the safety line does offer a back-up, the downside it that in some cases it's connected to an old bridge and if your swim is due to the collapse of said bridge, it's going to sink with you attached to it: that's always struck me as a very sage thought! ChrisJC - I think it was you that said that, was it not?
cap n chris
Well-known member
vanoord said:
Pretty much on the money here, V. As a suggestion is it possible to bag up all the heavy stuff and send it across the zip on its own and then do the crossing wearing no "lead" JIC the zip fails with a person crossing? At least you've got a chance in this scenario.
ChrisJC
Well-known member
vanoord said:
It was indeed. Came into my mind whilst standing on the central bridge support in the final bridge chamber! My brain has an unfortunate habit of identifying some particularly interesting failure modes when doing stuff like that. Sometimes I wish I was completely oblivious to the dangers, it would make it much easier!
Chris.
P.S. As for the inverting issue, same is true when using SRT gear, which is why most people dangle their bag beneath them. Even if you don't invert it's much easier when your centre of gravity is in the rope.
menacer
Active member
Ok once again Hypothetically (refering to the trip involved)cap 'n chris said:
Have to say that if the zip failed and the safety line failed, and i couldnt slip the rucksack off my back, if the ceiling hadnt already fallen in by then as well, I may as well drown....may I ask what you 2 would recommend for the ultimate safety of the roof collapses such as "Brains" reported,.....because that does actually happen....its not hypothetical......
For any one not prepared to foolishly undergo this trip with a rucksack on their back may I suggest you avoid this trip because although you could send your stuff across seperately on the zip there are numerous other occaisions where you cant.....may i also suggest to the same people never to wear a rucksack near any deep water should the same fate befall you....
Whilst I appreciate the light hearted nature of the comment in the first place about rucksacks and deep water, this has just got ridiculous....This is a brilliant trip, its been adequately rigged and backed up considering the biggest problem/danger is roof falls... comments please on how to avoid getting squished by roof collapses would be greatly appreciated but I suspect it would go something along the lines off " dont go underground"
:tease:As for dangling a bag underneath you in SRt yes its true, but thats not going into water.....the discussion here was the problem of the rucksack being attatched to you bodily and dragging you down......on this trip the bag would have got wet....still been attatched....and almost certainly dragged you to certain doom......obviously remembering that the zip wire and the safety wire had both snapped....MMMMmmmmm
I suggest the faint hearted dont watch the rest of the video as it shows us descending 200ft shafts only on one wire, no backup and no back up of a backup just in case the backup plan failed. Phhh such foolishness
vanoord
Member
menacer said:Ok once again Hypothetically (refering to the trip involved)
Have to say that if the zip failed and the safety line failed, and i couldnt slip the rucksack off my back, if the ceiling hadnt already fallen in by then as well, I may as well drown....may I ask what you 2 would recommend for the ultimate safety of the roof collapses such as "Brains" reported,.....because that does actually happen....its not hypothetical......
For any one not prepared to foolishly undergo this trip with a rucksack on their back may I suggest you avoid this trip because although you could send your stuff across seperately on the zip there are numerous other occaisions where you cant.....may i also suggest to the same people never to wear a rucksack near any deep water should the same fate befall you....
Whilst I appreciate the light hearted nature of the comment in the first place about rucksacks and deep water, this has just got ridiculous....This is a brilliant trip, its been adequately rigged and backed up considering the biggest problem/danger is roof falls... comments please on how to avoid getting squished by roof collapses would be greatly appreciated but I suspect it would go something along the lines off " dont go underground"
As for dangling a bag underneath you in SRt yes its true, but thats not going into water.....the discussion here was the problem of the rucksack being attatched to you bodily and dragging you down......on this trip the bag would have got wet....still been attatched....and almost certainly dragged you to certain doom......obviously remembering that the zip wire and the safety wire had both snapped....MMMMmmmm
Hehe. Absolutely right - on the bridges there's not much alternative to wearing a rucksack. On the zip, I've seen two people arrive mostly upside down, so sending bags alone has its merits - my tuppence worth of advice for the zip is "don't carry a hilti drill in your rucksack"
One thing we have done on recent trips is to take an old 50m climbing rope and attach that to the person who's crossing - that way, if they go in they can at least be dragged out again. It also makes for a handy pull-back cord to recover the pulley.
Roof falls? Er, wear a helmet to protect yourself from the small stuff. Don't make loud noises or crash around as that has been known to bring the roof down. If anything big falls on your head, you'll be squashed.
Cookie
New member
menacer said:This is a brilliant trip, its been adequately rigged and backed up considering the biggest problem/danger is roof falls... comments please on how to avoid getting squished by roof collapses would be greatly appreciated but I suspect it would go something along the lines off " dont go underground"
Don't mention the g word?
Be very, very quiet?
PS. Best not let them know we had our SRT kit on in the boats as well. :
cap n chris
Well-known member
WTF's going on? - I make a useful/helpful observation and this happens.
Anyone ever wonder why I got fucked off with C&A? - yep; being helpful results in getting it in the neck.
Anyone ever wonder why I got fucked off with C&A? - yep; being helpful results in getting it in the neck.