Wrysgan Slate Mine and Cwmorthin Mine, Tanygrisiau – Oldies’ Weekend (1st-4th May 2009) Saturday Trip

We began the day’s exertions by climbing up the huge incline that leads up the hill behind Tanygrisiau, and through the little tunnel at the top. There’s an engine and some other cool stuff up there so we spent a while admiring all that. We then popped into one of the Wrysgan entrances, and climbed down a level into a huge chamber full of rough blocks of slate. A small amount of investigating underneath a massive slab didn’t get us very far, so we back tracked and scrambled up the loose slope instead. From here we were able to get along the tunnels between the galleries, and have a good explore down into the lower levels. The mine is huge, a lot more of it is accessible than we thought from last time we visited. An excellent trip.

Lunch was enjoyed outside in the sunshine, and then we headed down to the lake and round the other side to have a look at Cwmorthin. Cwmorthin is more eery and scary that Wrysgan for some reason. Everything seems very doom laden. Highlights were broken bridges hanging from the roof, very deep and massive chambers, and a scary looking walkway that went round a corner 20 or 30m above the floor of the chamber.