Just had a very pleasant trip around Cwmorthin taking in a couple of new areas - in via the Smoke Flue and down the steps from Old Vein Floor A to B (not sure how we'd missed these before).
West from the bottom of the steps, on Floor B, leads to a view into a large chamber where someone has fixed a wire ladder and rope dropping into the darkness below. I'm not sure if this is Chamber 2 West or 3 West.
At this point we heard distant voices and with our lights turned off made out a fleeting glow from below.
We then continued down the OVI to Floor D and headed West expecting to meet whoever we'd heard and to see the ladder hanging down, but despite walking the full length of the floor, we didn't see a soul and couldn't see the ladder anywhere. Which was odd.
Chambers 3 and 4 West, Floor D are unusual ones in that there's a small chamber at the front, with an opening through into a larger rear chamber. Chamber 2 West (the one with the truck in it) is fairly shallow but has no visible opening through into a rear chamber. Can anyone tell me if it does actually have a rear chamber that's only accessible from above and that's where the ladder was going?
Or am I just getting completely confused?

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This post remind me how long it's been since I went into Cwm!

I think that would have been 3W - IIRC floor B pops out into the side of the chamber high up?

I imagine the ladder would drop down to C floor rather than directly down to D - the floors are spaced out quite a bit.

2W on D floor is the one with the upturned rubbish wagon in it.

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Thanks Simon, that does make sense. Another look at Graham's map shows something I hadn't spotted - 3W Floor C is marked with a single solid line at its base, whereas 2W C had a bridge. Assuming the bridge is down, the ladder would provide access to chambers 3-7W C that are otherwise cut-off.

I'd underestimated the heights, thinking we were looking up from floor D to C, but as you say they must be much higher than that in this part of the mine.
:thumbup:

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