Moel Fferna - 28th April 2013

[Tony Salusbury]

Visited with: Dan, Andy F, Mike, Vikki, Alison, Sweetie, Richard S, Amy & myself

As an SRT noob I was looking forward to this trip as albeit a very short 9m pitch, it was still going to be our first bit of SRT outside of the leisure centre.

Myself and Amy picked up Mike and headed off towards Llangollen, kindly helped by some canoeists who were leading the way infront of us although their canoe's on the roof rack were becoming more unstable after each and every bend.

We arrived at the layby at around 9.20, and Robin, Dan and Andrew were already there waiting for us. Vikki, Alison and Richard soon arrived and we decided which cars/vans we were all going to pile into and headed up towards Moel Fferna. We drove as far up the track as possible, and kitted up before beginning the long walk uphill towards the entrance pitch. Plenty of newly born lambs were around and Amy was pretty keen to take one home. After a slight detour (thanks Mike)  :whistle: we arrived at the correct tree, and Andrew kindly went about rigging the pitch. Andrew dropped down first, followed by Vikki with all us SRT noobies paying very close attention to how it was all done. Most of us were down except Dan and Mike, and Dan was duely bombarded with snowballs from the mound of snow inside the entrance, whilst Mike made his own 'unique' decent down.

We then all took our kit off  :woohoo: and walked inside, through some narrow tunnels, then climbed up through the hole in the wall and we were soon inside our first chamber. The first thing that struck me was the ceiling inside, a beautiful wide spanning rippled effect ceiling. We decided to proceed down into the mine and come back up to explore the upper level later on.

There weren't too many old workings or artifacts about but we stopped off and watched Dan go about doing his photopgraphy. There was one area where a huge cog support of slate and huge wood timbers were supporting the roof and a few us walked precariosly underneath, whilst Vikki and Andrew climbed up for the photoshoot. After more mooching around we came across the 'obligatory' bridge of death, which although deteriorating was pretty sturdy. Some of us gingerly crept across whilst others strolled like it was a walk through a field. The camera's all came out again to photo the bridge and all of us except Dan and Andrew carried on to the next level.

Once under the bridge we were treated to what I thought was a spectacular light show as Dan and Andrew were still at the bridge taking photo's. The lighting viewed from below looked fantastic and the bridge was lit up casting shadows and silhouettes which looked very impressive, sadly my photo didnt do it justice. Dan and Andrew soon came below and took another cracking photo, then we ventured on down some scree slopes, and a tricky 9ft vertical rope assisted drop, which I managed to balls up completely and nearly punctured my lung slamming into the wall (ok, I may be exagerating but it sounds better than just being a bit winded) and Rob mananged to film my mishap too.

We arrived at some deep water, which Andrew wandered into to see how deep it was, and as it was considered too deep to explore further it was the ideal time to stop for lunch.

We then ventured back up, with Mike very kindly filling Andrew's bag with some slate souveniers   unknown to him for a good 30 mins or so. Back over the bridge of death and after a few wrong turns we arrived at the starting chamber and proceeded to the upper levels to see some rather nice drumhouses, the drumhouse on the top level still with drum in place, and an old pump still in situ. The paparazzi snapped away for the group photo, and we then headed for the exit.

All kitted up and SRT'd back up, then had the more enjoyable and effortless walk back downhill to the cars, then back to the layby where we said goodbye to Vikki and Alison, and the rest of us popped to the Berwyn Arms for some much needed refreshment.

A great trip, with plenty of laughs, and our first SRT (for the noobs) was in the bag.

Big thanks for Andrew for rigging and derigging the pitch for us all, and thanks to Dan for arranging the trip.

Photo's to follow................

[Tony Salusbury]

Kitting up
Andy begins rigging the entrance pitch
Richard on the way down
Vikki crosses the bridge
Bridge of Death
The rope assisted drop (which I came a cropper)

[Tony Salusbury]

The lit up bridge viewed from below (It looked far better than this shot shows)
The pool of water where we had lunch
Rusty pipework
Alison crossing bridge on the way back
Mr Leahy up to no good
Another little climb
Old drumhouse
Old drumhouse (still with drum) on top level

[Tony Salusbury]

Amy coming out under the watchful eye of Mr Leahy

[mike leahy]

cracking trip report tony, you'll have to do it more often.
and the piccies turned out well    

[Danny Sutton]

A couple of my pics, The rest are here - http://www.dspexplores.com/#/?p=386

[Tony Salusbury]

[quote="mike leahy" post=17421]cracking trip report tony, you'll have to do it more often.
and the piccies turned out well    [/quote]

Cheers Mike, I'm suprised I could remember it all  :silly:

[Tony Salusbury]

Awesome photo's Dan, you make the place come alive. That shot of the roof is stunning!

[Robin Jones]

There is a video on the way.  I eventually clicked finalize at 12.06am, just checked it now (7.17am) and it'll be ready in 16 hrs 44 minutes - nice!

Wonder how long it'll take to upload to YouTube?  Might be ready by Christmas  :blink:

[Tony Salusbury]

16 hours  :ohmy:  How long is the video?

[Robin Jones]

30 mins 40 secs.  Approx 28 minutes of that is my abseil down  :lol:

Might just cancel it and chop loads out, then try again  

[Tony Salusbury]

Lol. Nah leave it.  Would be a shame to cancel all the work you've done on it.

[Ali Wiseman]

What res are You rendering at, and is there enough coal for the boiler?

Seriously, I've never needed more than an hour or so, and that's on my fairly anaemic quad core (AthlonII X4 640). Are you doing this on an old laptop or something?

[Ian A]

Great trip report (more please    ) and awesome photos      

[Tony Salusbury]

Is this your laptop Sweetie?
[img size=200]http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/161-9249044SPA74UC705019M.jpg[/img]