Trip to Minera Lead Mine -- 30th Nov 2003

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Trip to Minera Lead Mine -- 30th Nov 2003

Group: Dennis, Gordon, Graham, Mary, Dave

We had planned to do Giants Hole as Dennis "the vice" Boyd was meant to be doing cave rescue training in the Gwydyr forest and we would therefore have a fighting chance of getting everyone past the crabwalk. In the event Dennis thought the practise has been rearranged (it hadn't) and since the weather in Yorkshire was pretty grim we decided on Minera.

Having driven there and unpacked, Dennis discovered he had left his lamp in the car back at Wallasey, fortunately there was a spare Petzl zoom which gave a feeble but acceptable light. Rigging for the descent down "cabin shaft" was fairly easy, there are quite a few trees to anchor to - though some look a bit insubstantial. A quick SRT saw everyone safely at the bottom of the 15m shaft.

There were a few artifacts from previous explorers, a couple of tins containing stubs of chalk and a nice set of plastic signs with the names of the various shafts and associated veins. It was not clear whether these has yet to deployed in their respective locations or that some miserable bas**rd had been around collecting them! After tidying up the gear the intepid explorers set off in a vain effort to find the Grand Turk streamway. Dennis had been to this a long time ago, and both he and Graham & Mary had had a couple of unsuccessful trips to revisit it.

We set off following the white arrows (or lines) hoping they would lead vaguely in the right direction. Periodically there were fairly obvious yellow arrows pointing back to the descent shaft. After a while the party was presented with the first of many splits in the passage and the search for the way on started in earnest. Often the way on was clear from the muddy footprints and occasional marker, and we passed under various shafts, some open and others capped. There were plastic signs propped up nearby several of them giving the shaft name and the associated veins. The going was somewhat muddy and there were a few flat out crawls and a lot of stooping. At one point a section of railway track and a few pieces of boggie were found and there was a muffled sound of water. Dave crawled up a narrow passage and found a fair amount of water flowing down into a deep stope and this was probably the sound heard near the railway.

The exploration continued, dead end after dead end, until Graham decided he had done enough for the day and it was unlikely that we were going to find it without a bit more info. We headed back to cabin shaft, hauled ourselves back up the rope, into the inclement weather and headed for a pub. A good trip on what was a fairly shitty day.