The Croesor to Rhosydd Through Trip
At last, my first opportunity to do
the infamous CRTT, something I had yearned to have a
go at for a number of years. Clive and Eddie were keen
and James only needed some gentle encouragement during
Mike's recent jaunt up Shuttingslow. After a good
hearty breakfast (The full fry up of course) we
eventually got round to checking the gear; SRT kit,
climbing rope, pulleys for the zip wires and buoyancy
aids just incase an unexpected swim was in order! We
set off for Porthmadoc for the all important dinghy to
get us across two underground lakes. After a little
exercise up and down the high street we eventually
found a likely looking shop open, full of the normal
seaside essentials; flip flops, rubber rings and a
kinda gave away the fact that he wasn't too keen on
the idea of having to absail down into a shopkeeper
was able to direct us to a another shop where we
quickly (and with a few sighs of relief) bought a much
more substantial looking village, we all sweated our
way up the misty 45min trek to the Croesor adit, a
crawl past a couple of bent bars to enter a roomy
walking passage.
All
smiles before entering the adit.
We followed the adit until we reached
an incline. This was our way on since the passages
towards Rhosydd were blocked at this level. We had to
clamber over the remains of an old building and up two
levels to reach an opening into the enormous and very
fragile Chamber 1 East. A fixed line disappeared over
the edge into the darkness for 80ft.
Clive
bravely going where no Cave & Cragger had gone
before!
Clive bravely volunteered to absail
down the line first, a newish looking static rope with
the rub points backed up with protectors. Soon we were
all down on the boulder strewn floor and carefully
made our way across to another opening where a very
slippery 70ft drop took us onto the floor of the next
chamber. We were pleased to find a gentle zip wire in
place to get us across the flooded chamber. Clive
again jumped at the chance of having the first
descent, whist I wanted to hang around to last taking
photos.
 
This
is fun!
The Petzl Tandem Pulley I had bought
the previous day at Caving Supplies proved just the
ticket as we all happily drifted down the line and
into the connection with the next flooded chamber.
There was no zip line this time and though some kind
soul had gone to all the effort of constructing an
aluminium bridge, it was resting very visibly at the
bottom of a crystal clear lake. James seemed to take
surprising pleasure in blowing up our Angels
definitely feared to tread. I had to lower myself down
the 2ft drop into the waiting dinghy, ending up in a
most ungainly heap on my back with my heavy sack
resting on top. I'm sure as I pulled away I heard a
slight pop but I quickly used the guide line to get me
to the other side where I then made a pig's ear of
getting first the bag and then myself on to dry land,
both of us getting a little wetter than planned as the
boat seemed to fill up surprisingly quickly with water
(I just put it down to my own portly 15 stone and a
bag that seemed to weigh a similar amount!).
 
Nice
day for a spot of boating!
The others soon pulled the boat back
and after a quick examination came to the conclusion
that maybe it hadn't been the best policy to let the
heaviest member go first! Eddie very gallantly crossed
the previous chamber, up the zip wire to retrieve a
dinghy abandoned by a previous group whilst James and
Clive attempted a repair job using 'STRING!'. I just
sat at the other side of the lake rather bemused and a
little concerned at the murmurings of mutiny within
the ranks. Eddie's second boat had no bung and ours
wouldn't fit and the repair job somewhat surprisingly
didn't work. I was resigned to the fact that a return
boat trip might be in order but tried once more to
persuade them that as long as we kept blowing the
blooming thing up, it could survive the trip. James
very bravely volunteered to come across but at the
slightest hint from Eddie that the boat was yet again
resting on a razor sharp shard of slate, he was out of
there like the proverbial rat up a drain pipe! Some
well aimed rocks were able to create a nice bow wave
to gently get the boat back to me. Having sent my bag
back first and donned my buoyancy aid I launched
myself into the boat. The dinghy lurched to one side
with my slightly uneven weight distribution and I
fought madly to try and stay somehow on the thing, but
all to no avail and I was very quickly grasping for
the guideline and dragging myself across the ever so
slightly cold water! Clive and James manfully dragged
me out. Eddie, James and Clive easily returned back up
the zip wire, but again I had to depend on the others
to use our climbing rope to help yank me across. The
rub points on the absail now looked a little more
worrying since we had to prusik back up them, but we
used the climbing rope to back up the static rope.
Clive and myself felt quite happy since we had our SRT
kit with us but Eddie and James found it a little more
fiddly using caving gear for the first time, and in
James' case, only after a gallant but all in vain
attempt to just use Prusik loops. Our fun and games
were not quite finished as we spent atleast 15mins
rather aimlessly searching Chamber 1 east for the
final prusik back to the initial incline. We were
underground about 6 hours, missed out on the dubious
pleasures of the 'Bridge of Death' and the 'Chamber of
Horrors', one of us got a slight soaking and we all
ended up having to re-ascend the rather scary absail
ropes, but what a fantastic trip! We made it back to
the hut to find there was still beer in the barrel and
the fireworks had yet to be lit. It wasn't long before
we were planning our next attempt on the CRTT and a
few other members of the climbing fraternity were
hinting at their own interest in joining us!
All's well that ends well!
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