United Cavers Exploration Team

Great to hear from you Ian, not seen you about in a long time. You still getting underground much?

No, not sold Go Below, I'm still one of the directors but really it's run by a small and very competent team now, I just do maintenance work mostly these days, electrical and basic mine engineering stuff. I'm involved with a few other local businesses too, so with that and two home educated teenagers, I'm pretty busy, but I'm hoping to get back into exploring places like I used to before life said no. I'm sure you understand.

It is a GCC controlled shaft (nice guess).

It drops down a couple of hundred feet with some passageways between levels. I found the lid unlocked on a wander some years ago and did have a peep down there but didn't reach either the terminus or an entry to anything else. But, I suspect it may connect to Pool Parc which is relatively close.

I might be able to find something somewhere .... I'll post again if I do.



Ian

Hi Miles,

All of the "Old School" in the club know exactly who you are  :whistle:  :whistle:  :whistle:

No one has forgotten your mine-explorer website/forum either - between you and Simon your two sites were invaluable.

Welcome to the UCET forum (and UCET too)

Two years ago "Fresh Blood" took over the running of the club (the "oldies" stepped down) and they are doing a great job of moving the club forwards. No empire building, no willy-waving and no nonsense.

I know what you mean about just wanting to explore - I think most of the "Old Guard" across the area now also feel the same way.

Interesting choice of words you have used "I work for (Go-Below)" ... have you sold it?

Anyway, nice to see you still active 

Ian Adams

Was heading back from Wrexham to Betws yesterday and thought I'd take the old Worlds-End road towards Llangollen as I've not been that way for more than 10 years. I used to do some exploration around Minera a long time ago, I remember following an old, low and wet drainage level from the river down in the village, going under the Esclusham mountain past a few shafts on the way. Not been in there for a very long time, maybe you can't even get in there these days, I don't know. I think it was the drainage for the Park Mine but I don't remember exactly.

Anyway, yesterday my daughter and I had a look about on the tops. She collects sheep bones (don't ask) and is always looking for some.

Came across a few old shafts up there, not unsurprisingly, most of which appear heavily capped beyond all hope of entry.

One of them, not far from the road, did have a locked gate on the top. It looked a bit like an old GCC lid, but with an Abloy 330 padlock on it. If memory serves, the water board is very fond of these locks so maybe the shaft drops to an old drainage level for inspection purposes or something. The holes in the lid frame for the padlock to go through were quite worn, clearly at some point this lid has seen a lot of traffic. Maybe not for a long time though. Hard to say.

I was just wondering what it was. I know there used to be winch trips up on the mountain at one point, no idea if they still happen, or which shaft is used for them. Maybe it's this one.

Not done a huge amount in this area, and not for quite a while, but I'm interested and would like to learn more about it.

The shaft location is here:

http://streetmap.co.uk/map?X=325315&Y=351186&A=Y&Z=115

Thanks everyone.

Quote from: Dave Tyson on Feb 21, 2025, 11:09 PM...Go Below etc. will turn a blind eye.

We (Go Below) do meet explorers in there from time to time, but it's not our job to control, manage or police access to the place. We are just a mine user like everyone else. The only situation where we'd make an intervention is if we witnessed something very dangerous or illegal happening, as we're obliged to do so under mine regs.

So as far as we're concerned, other explorers are just other explorers and it's nothing to do with us.

Thanks so much Dave, you've done a great job with the forum. Yes it's a lot of work running something like this. I'd be interested in being a member of UCET though I'm not sure how I'd go about that.

I know what you mean about the surge in clickbait-content creating idiots out there these days. I can't be bothered with them, they'll be the end of everything good in this world. I don't use Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok, although I do have some older and non-sensitive videos on Youtube for prosperity.

Would be great to see you for a coffee some time Dave! Let me know you're coming so I can make sure I'm there

Hi Miles,

Welcome to the new UCET forum!

Great to hear from you and maybe when I get some free time I will pop into the office and revisit Cwmorthin!

Switching from the old forum to the new one took a lot of time and effort as I had to write new conversion tools. You know how software projects can demand exessive amounts of time from running the mine explorer website.

There is still work to do with the knowledge bank; I would like to expand the public version but the prevalence of attention-seeking social media idiots is an issue. There is a UCET-only set of boards which are freer and easier with information as members pay a yearly fee.

Anyway it's great to hear from you again and I am sure many other members will be pleased you are still active.

Cheers Dave.

Hello everyone at UCET

My name is Miles, I'm a general purpose mine explorer from the Betws-y-coed area. Some of you might remember me from the good old days when I actually got out more and did interesting things. For the last decade or so I've been so busy with work I've not really done a lot of personal exploration and I'm a bit sad about how that's so fallen by the wayside. I'd like to get back into things but I'm a bit at sea looking for a tribe who'll have me in the ranks.

A long time ago I used to run a popular website for mine exploring (called,  imaginatively, Mine-Explorer), some of you more gray-haired types might remember it. I'm probably more known these days through the company I work for (go-below.co.uk) and as I work in Cwmorthin a lot, I frequently meet explorers and stop for a chat. The mine remains popular with explorers and I'm happy to help with any questions about the place.

I'm not political or an access activist, although I tried to be helpful in this area years ago but I'm too long in the tooth now to care much for it. I have no interest in willy-waving, empire-building, self-glorification, attention seeking or funny business. I just like exploring and would like to do more of it, well, what's within my abilities anyway.

I'd describe myself as quiet, friendly, steady and discrete. I like to take a few photos and videos sometimes but only for my own record as something to look back on when the time comes when I'm too old to wander down holes.

Anyway, those of you who I know... A big hello to you, and those I don't... I hope I get to meet you someday.

Miles

We seem to be having a rash of registrations for various people with odd choices of name and or email address. They seem to start to register and then generally don't click on the activation link. They cannot do anything other than view public posts. There were 4 dating back about 10 days and 2 today which look spammy.
 
Fortunately admin users can easily get rid of these with a couple of clicks and I have just deleted them all. I will post a note about this for admin users in the private admin section of the forum.

I am aware this might lead to some false positives - however, in fairness, most users who are genuinely interested in caving/mine-exploring will complete the registration in a day or so and generally will be logging in from a UK IP address.

Dave

Looking forward to this one 😀