CRTT 25/02/2012 report & question

[KevinR]

Hi
5 of us did the through trip on Saturday starting at Cwm Orthin walking past the Rhosydd adit and over to Croesor. First time for all of us, so a little time was taken route finding and tackling the obstacles, but 30+ years of caving experience certainly helps. Rather than give the standard "Tom was late as usual, Justine forgot.." type of report here are some "lessons learnt" that might just help others.

All the in-situ ropes were in good condition, but taking a 50M rope to be able to abseil down and pull through is a sensible approach
Glad we took a dinghy or it would have been a very wet and cold swim.

A line attached to the dinghy to quickly retrieve it is very useful (rather than try and use the "endless" rope but you do need 33 metres (not 30!)

On the Zip wire, we all had our own pulleys (to save retrieving a pulley each time), that was very useful as I think our big heavy pulleys would have been difficult to retrieve.

a powerful light, (just to see the other side of obstacles) is really useful.

Allow time (in daylight) to walk up do the trip AND walk down (we ended up using lights to walk back down)

If you exit into the Twll then some of the exits are difficult once you've got into daylight, and the final exit from the quarry to the footpath on the top was a tricky climb when you are tired (some of the group were glad we had a rope)

The QUESTION
after getting into Rhosydd, we found three or four ways up into the Twll (big open quarry), but despite finding sections of the ongoing adit (heading in the correct direction and with sleeper remnants), we were unable to find the way through to the Adit exit by the buildings, it all seemed fairly precarious. Any advice/guidance/suggestions?

Cheers
KevinR + others from BEC
 

 

[CatM]

Below is an extract from a recent trip report I wrote, giving what I hope is a comprehensive guide for finding your way to the Rhosydd adit. I also wrote a guide for finding the Croesor entrance from Rhosydd (including pointers for if its dark/foggy) if anyone's interested?

Did you use a dinghy before the zipwire? When I was there in January, the suspension bridge had been re-raised at the part where a dinghy used to be necessary. (Obviously there's also the Chamber of Horrors, though we didn't need to get our boat out there either as there was an in situ raft at the time)

For the zipwire, if you want to just use one pulley, you can use our method of attaching a bit of polyprop to retrieve the pulley, but when it comes to pulling it back, attach a tackle sack or something reasonably heavy to stop it flipping over on the wire - works pretty well.

Anyways:

Chamber of Horrors to Rhosydd adit
From the rope at the end of the Chamber of Horrors, follow the tunnel then go up the second incline on the right (if you try to go any further you?ll reach a blockage). At the top, turn left then pass through several chambers and a couple of collapses (at one point along the way is a track going up an incline with some turntables at the bottom), until you see daylight above you to the right. Again, climb up the incline, but do not be tempted to exit here ? you will end up in the twll - a deep depression which is very difficult to get out of, and is in the middle of nowhere on the mountain top. Instead, head across the chamber then back down to ?ground? level. Go through the tunnel, passing through several more chambers with increasingly larger openings. When the tunnel ahead becomes blocked, your way on is down the incline to the left. Working your way down the slopes and across a couple of tunnels will take you to the level of the Rhosydd adit. I think there are several possible ways to get down to here, but just follow your nose and you can?t go too far wrong. At the bottom is a large prominent cog, and water running through the chamber. Exploring upstream, you will find several building works and interesting artefacts. Heading downstream will take you in a straight line for several hundred metres until emerging at the Rhosydd adit, the end of the trip!

 

[KevinR]

Thanks for that, we did fairly well, but somehow couldn't see/ couldn't find the "down the incline to the left" the couple of possible "down and lefts" I saw were full of water, maybe we didn't go far enough?

As for dinghy, we just used it the once, the earlier bridges were possible (with care!)

 

[CatM]

I suspect you didn't go far enough. IIRC, there were a couple of points along the passage that it looked like the way ahead was blocked, but actually you could climb through the breakdown. Where you got to a definite blockage ahead, there was a fairly obvious (non-flooded) way on down to the left.

 

[ChrisJC]

The incline in question is the 5/9 incline, which has partly collapsed in the last decade.

You head across the bottom of the Twll (you have to go up and back down within the Twll to pass a bridge). I believe the incline is blocked on that horizon (floor 6), so you drop down the backfilled chamber just before it and pop out on the incline on floor 7 or 8. Descend the incline and you are at the end of the adit.

Chris.

 

[KevinR]

We certainly did the Up the slope, down the slope element and crawled through a number of "it looks blocked... no it isn't" type bits. Hopefully next time we will have a little more time to explore carefully. Thanks all
Kevin

 

[Les W]

From memory, once you have climbed up the rubble slope (after the turntables) and then back down to the level again, there is no need to crawl until you get to the collapse that blocks the end. At this point you can climb/crawl down a "scree slope" that is actually a filled chamber, to the next floor, then continue on to the incline. You should pop out just below the collapse. Continue down the incline to water and then just around the corner you should be able to see a small pinpoint of daylight (the light at the end of the tunnel). Assuming, of course, that there is still some daylight to be seen by then...  :-\

 

[Rhys]

I've done the trip twice in the last 5 years and failed to find the way out of the adit; It's not obvious! I did do the adit to the twll a number of times as a teenager, but that woukd be 20 years ago!

Sorry I can't be of more help!

Rhys

 

[CatM]

I did the trip just armed with a description from mine-explorer, and we found the way first time. It's not obvious... unless you know where to look. I think with all the information above, anyone trying to find it shouldn't really have any problems

 

[Nigelh]

In one of the open stopes in the base of the Twll there's some large timbers and an iron staple thing. Go down from there. It's a bit low, so it's a bum-slide for the first few metres and at first it looks steeper than it really is. From that chamber head across right (as you face down-slope) you'll find a way into the 5-9 incline. From the bottom of that turn right, follow the water out from the three-way chamber you'll find yourself in. If it's still daylight outside, you'll be able to see the end of the adit from the three-way chamber.

 

[Alex]

When we did it, we got lost in daylight for about an hour trying to find the way on, until we went almost back on our selfs and clambered down a slope, before reaching the incline.

The climbs out did look tretorous especially as it had been raining.

 

[GT]

Yeh its really not easy to find your way into the number 9 Adit now! The Twll is also a real horror to exit on a dark misty night, having to make that climb then try to figure out where you are along the circumference of the quarry you've just appeared out of to then try and navigate off the hill!!

To access the incline to the No 9 Adit you do have to crawl through a number of what looks like collapses (they may be just back fill) followed by a harrowing descent down some scree; am I selling it?

 

[ChrisJC]

The climbs out did look treacherous especially as it had been raining.

There is one place that the climb is dead easy and very short; everywhere else it's a bit of a challenge.

Chris.