Shaft L near Mouldridge Mine
Hal, Brendan, Allan and Victoria
Unfortunately Katie was missing this evening as it was a rare opportunity for her to go along on a trip she hasn’t actually done! On our previous trip out to Mouldridge Hal and Allan had spotted the nearby covered shaft in the hillside and rather than joining us decided to have a look. Tonight, we went back again as it was reported to be an excellent example of hand picked mine. It did not disappoint.
After unlocking the lid we had placed a scaff bar across and descended down into the mine shaft. It is a really stable and large shaft. The account from Hal and Allan was that the shaft does not go anywhere at the bottom but rather the interesting mine workings were on the shaft halfway down. With a small swing you can land on a nice ledge (don’t lose the rope) and start your way through all hand picked passages.
Some are quite large and with four in the party we all had enough space. There were numerous places to do some crawling which usually lead to dead ends. Some walls were very loose with stacked deads but they were fairly obvious. We saw several nice dogtooth crystals and some very old mining remnants. On the previous trip down Hal and Allan had dropped a gas meter and the readings were acceptable. We did find some remnants of a suspected gas mask left behind by some miners of long ago.
Regrouping at the shaft, Allan decided to check out another level that was accessed by a short prussik up and a climb. You could see an old mine cart and it led through to a short walkable passage. Allan said there were some more nice calcite formations. It was a quick trip up and out and back into some clear skies. We had a great view of what appeared to be satellites tracing across the night sky…..We had time to make games night in the Miners Arms for one. Bonus ! they serve free grub as well.