Croesor - Rhosydd

Saturday August 29th 2015

Members present: Adam Walmsley,  Adam Hughes,  Alastair Gott,  Andy Hurlbatt,  Catherine Moody,  David Willis,  Evan Cooper,  Gary Douthwaite,  Matt Ewles,  Rachel Findlay

A fun and interesting trip as always. We walked over from Tanygrisiau - a scenic route but with lots of ascent. Fans of ferns, mosses and lycophytes will find much to delight them thereabouts. Many features of the mine I had forgotten since my last visit, including the bottomless pool and incline right at the start. There were brand new ropes on the pitches which was reassuring. At the zip line, we used the massive in-situ roller instead of our double pulley - this made for a much slower and less exciting ride. In an effort to gain some speed I somehow managed to invert myself half way along and almost caught my fingers in the pulley - not cool. We skimmed stones across the crystal waters while others zipped. At the ladder of doom we threw comically large pieces of slate into the pool to splash people as they crossed. We then traversed the first bridge, the second bridge chamber and arrived at the bridge of death. Gary attempted this first and had a mare trying to unclip from the wire at the half-way point. We then re-tensioned the rope, used a pulley on that and a steel crab on the wire. This seemed to work satisfactorily but wasn't pretty; it could do with a nice new single span zip wire installing there. Then there was the chamber of horrors - the kayak was still there and seaworthy, but had no oars and was attached to a pull cord. Gary and I went across first, then I tried to go back in the tiny dinghy, but it started to sink and I got wet. Onwards and we reached Rhosydd mine and this time decided to climb the great incline to see the winding station at the top and the counterbalance cart half way down - well worth it! After a nice explore through the rest of Rhosydd, we trundled out via the adit into a lovely warm afternoon.