North Wales Mining Trip 2005

A brief report by Allan Richardson

A total of 13 members assembled outside the Pen Morfa mine entrance on the Great Orme at 1000 on the 14th May, we were met by half a dozen or so GOMES (Great Orme mine exploration society) members, who had a brew waiting for us. The mine starts as a 100m crawl in sewer pipes, the locals had specially designed trolleys for this section (for themselves only). This was then followed by a long walk in initially deep water (near waist deep on one of our vertically challenged members), the water gradually got shallower and we reached the first of a series of mined out rifts which rise several hundred feet, and can be free climbed by various devious routes, all of which seem to unite to form a vertical maze. There was some evidence of copper minerals left, and there were a number of impressive blue/green deposits, which were duly photographed. There was little evidence of mining remains, except in the lowest levels, where there was the remains of rails on the floor and some fragments of the ventilation system. After being underground for several hours we returned to a warm sunny afternoon.

The evening was spent in the Liverpool Arms in Beaumaris as usual, consuming illiberal amounts of food and beer.

The plot for Sunday had been another mining trip, but the GOMES members were unable to supply a leader at the last minute. There were a number of underground options available, but strangely no one seemed that enthusiastic, and opted to stay in the sunshine, we ended up going to South Stack to check out the cafe, and to look at the lighthouse, where Chris and Sheila Grimmet were able to point out the various types of bird and Clark was able to wax lyrical about the geology.

All in all a very pleasant weekend was had by all, for those of you who need plenty of notice, the next North Wales mine trip will be on the weekend of the 13/14 May 2006.

Thanks for the trip have been sent to the GOMES. Photos from the trip will hopefully be appearing on the club website in the near future.