"its" still there, hopefully not "he's" still there!

Haha, no he's fine - I've never seen him move so quickly! Two of our team should be up there about now actually, so we'll find out soon enough if it's still standing.

I don't think I've had any experiences anywhere near approaching what has been related here.

I'm clearly not trying hard enough..........

If you are doing exploratory work away from "trade routes" it is pretty much an occupational hazard.

Cave diggers measure their success in metres of passage found; mine diggers measure their success in their ongoing survival!

Sort of crumpled up and semi conscious on a sollar in a 300ft mill hole ladder way knowing that I'd lit the fuse but not knowing how much burn time was left.....fast legs and sh*tsville:o

Lozz.

Hitting my head on a roof timber, carrying on a few yards, and then thinking to myself "I never usually hit that". Turned around to see that the timber was only really holding on by a thread ... crept past it back out.
It fell down a few days later

Moral of this story : looking for the trip hazards on the floor is only part of the story, even if you've been in somewhere a dozen times !

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The western section of the Llanberis Copper Mine descends a long way in a corkscrew fashion and it is pretty obvious that if you dislodge anything it will land on the person below. Ascending first (good idea with some of my colleagues) I heard a loud roaring noise much like a vast quantity of rock falling, I thought - well at least its going to be quick! The roaring continued as did, after a slight delay, my ascent only to find that the hot summers day we left had become a thunder storm.

Many years ago in Long Rake Spar Mine I was ascending a long section of ladders with stages in between. Stepping round the bottom of one ladder to start ascending it I heard timber breaking above me and something falling. Knowing there were two colleagues above me I locked my arms into the ladder and hoped for the best. Something hit my shoulder and I braced for the worst. After a slight delay I heard "S&$t, that was close" One of the ladders above had broken, the rung had fallen out, and Ian was left spanning the gap.

Abseiling off a hemp rope into one of Pant y Wrach’s vertical stopes... then after few metres down, seeing my carabiner- used as a belay, uncurling.

Along with the limitations of school boy skills, suitable materials (youthful optimism and a disinterested teacher), the carabiner was made of mild steel and I struggled to marry the gate thread to that of the spine’s for the lock. Not to mention the hinge strength. What could possibly go wrong! The burst of adrenaline for the shimmy helped my chances I guess. 😞

First time I did Coniston Copper Mines through trips - Flemmings to Taylors and then the Paddy End one - made me think Nenthead was safe as houses.

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My life or death experience was in a climbing shaft above the Manifold valley, in the Bincliffe mines. This was in 1970 on a Youth Hostelling stay at Ilam Hall. We found an open shaft that looked about 4 feet deep. I decided to go down it with my bike torch. It went down, and down. It was probably a climbing shaft, it got wet and slippy, I slipped and found myself jammed at and angle. I looked down to see the shaft descending a scary distance ! I scrabbled and crawled my way to the top. From then on I was hooked on exploring old mines !

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Digging a collapsed shaft in Gudhamgill High Level at NH in the last century. Dug through the fall and I went through the hole and wandered up the level to Jacobs shaft and further on to the bad air sections....level still going but had gone a long way on my own. Returned to collapse and thought that water level was much deeper. The shaft had collapsed again and water was nearly at the roof. Rest of the team were digging from the other side. Eventually a hole was dug through and I was dragged throught the debris, which continued to slide down on me.

Was in a group which descended Moorfurlong Mine near Castleton. Shaft not very deep and a nice dry level with rails and a floor of deads. Small mine waggon parked on the rails. Steve Thompson suggested that the waggon should be recovered for a Museum, and he enlisted the TA to pull it up the shaft the following week. We returned a week later to get some rail and found that the nice floor of deads was a thin false floor over a stope, which had collapsed since our visit the week before. So I lay flat on the floor to look down the hole and found that I was lying on a 12 inch false floor supported on ancient timber which stretched back to the shaft for many yards. Stood up slowly and shot back to the shaft. Hmmm..

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Going digging anywhere with GNick.
He has an uncanny knack of knocking things back down.

Leif

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He's only giving Gravity a hand :lol:

MARK

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He's only giving Gravity a hand :lol:

MARK

I prefer to think that he enjoys digging that much, he just likes to do things twice... Just for the “full” experience.

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Was in a group which descended Moorfurlong Mine near Castleton. Shaft not very deep and a nice dry level with rails and a floor of deads. Small mine waggon parked on the rails. Steve Thompson suggested that the waggon should be recovered for a Museum, and he enlisted the TA to pull it up the shaft the following week. We returned a week later to get some rail and found that the nice floor of deads was a thin false floor over a stope, which had collapsed since our visit the week before. So I lay flat on the floor to look down the hole and found that I was lying on a 12 inch false floor supported on ancient timber which stretched back to the shaft for many yards. Stood up slowly and shot back to the shaft. Hmmm..

I thought the mine in question was Wham Engine? Steve also told me the tale about the disappearing floor at Bird Mine....:o

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He's only giving Gravity a hand :lol:

MARK

I prefer to think that he enjoys digging that much, he just likes to do things twice... Just for the “full” experience.

I resemble that remark 😉

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Was in a group which descended Moorfurlong Mine near Castleton. Shaft not very deep and a nice dry level with rails and a floor of deads. Small mine waggon parked on the rails. Steve Thompson suggested that the waggon should be recovered for a Museum, and he enlisted the TA to pull it up the shaft the following week. We returned a week later to get some rail and found that the nice floor of deads was a thin false floor over a stope, which had collapsed since our visit the week before. So I lay flat on the floor to look down the hole and found that I was lying on a 12 inch false floor supported on ancient timber which stretched back to the shaft for many yards. Stood up slowly and shot back to the shaft. Hmmm..

I thought the mine in question was Wham Engine? Steve also told me the tale about the disappearing floor at Bird Mine....:o

Yes you are correct - my mistake. It is Wham engine.

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Couple of incidents and places spring to mind in the Wheal Pendarves sett early 80's.

After a long hours slog through a very ochred adit with gonad cooling depth, we turned into a gently climbing crosscut and came to a 6x4ft winze/ladderway with a fully fitted set of of what looked like decent condition ladders and platforms as far as you could see down. I gingerly touched the top of the ladder and it squeezed through my fingers like putty.

We found a small pebble and dropped it down and all we could hear was plop, plop, plop as it went straight through each rotten platform. One of the lads had a waterproof casio with stopwatch, so we found a larger rock back down the tunnel and timed it. It took around 30 secs to hit solid bottom.

Second incident was complete 'pucker time' for one of the lads, though the funniest thing I've ever seen underground.

We came to a flooded shaft which at water level was opened out about 20 ft wide. One of the boys volunteered to take off his cap lamp and swim a rope across to the opposite level, so the rest of us could pull the gear over. He took off his helmet/lamp belt, tied a rope around his waist and let himself down into the water. He was about 6ft out when we heard a scream followed by a 2ftx2ft engine beam suddenly rearing 6ft out of the water right alongside him. Well he completed the swim and was out the other side in about 5 secs flat! At this point we were in hysterics having seen what had happened, had turned our lamps off and were rolling about laughing. The poor guy was sitting in the opposite adit in pitch black now, with no idea what had happened, aware of SOMETHING in the water and throwing swear words at all and sundry. Once we stopped laughing, we put the lights back on and after the disturbed mud had settled, peered into the water where could see some ironwork about 4ft below surface, which the beam must have been wedged under until he dislodged it with his foot. The beam was still bobbing up and down.

Eventually we all pulled across on the rope, but the opposite level was a dead end about 50 yards from the shaft.

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“Most worrying place you've ever been in a mine...”

Underground, passing by a pretty ‘dense’ group not so long ago.

“Most worrying place you've ever been in a mine...”

Underground, passing by a pretty ‘dense’ group not so long ago.

"Dense" as in numerous and tightly packed or "dense" as in....erm....thick..?? :blink: Both are dangerous these days :(

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About 4 years ago was exploring in Cwmorthin and headed east towards Oakeley on Floor F. Going along the level, the rock quality changed from good, sound slate to very loose, flaky shale. There had been a fall by the entrance to the next chamber but there was a hole big enough to crawl through. Inside, there were small, glittery flakes floating in the air, a smell of freshly cleaved slate and every few seconds, tinkling sounds as bits peeled off the ceiling and hit the rest of the slate rubble floor.
Never been so glad as to scramble back out of that chamber - it looked as though there was a clear way on at the far side of the chamber but the chance of the ceiling coming down and blocking the only certain way out, no way, Hosé...
Simon L knows which chamber!!

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