One through trip that we have never done is Brownley Hill to
Nentsberry Haggs in its own right. We have done it as part of the Greater
Nenthead Traverse and as a trip from Brownley Hill (before we dug Haggs out)
and back.
We entered Brownley Hill and at the Engine Sump junction
headed north west along Wellgill Cross Vein until we reached what we call the
worm hole to the Haggs connection. We climbed up into the engine room here to
have a look at it as it has been 17 years since we last visited. We popped into
the chamber behind the engine room, took some photos of it and then some of the
engine room as well. Back down and into Haggs via the ladders and
platform.
The state of Wellgill Cross Vein on the Haggs level seemed to
be in stable state and it all looked pretty much as we remembered it from the
last visit in 2009. Not being in a rush, we took the time to take some photos
of the level. It's quite photogenic in the places where the vein is at an angle
and the walls of the level to match. Finally, we reached Nentsberry Haggs Vein
and carried on past it, taking the crosscut (North End Level) to the High Raise
Second Sun Vein. We were surprised to see that the water here had a calcite
crust on it, maybe not so many visitors to Admiralty Flat these days? Once on
the sun vein we headed along it to the rise up into the flats. The rope here
did not look that great and we were debating on what its state was up
top…. I offered to go up but Karli took the mickey saying I would be like
a bouncing elephant on the rope and that he could go up nice and smoothly
reducing risk. I wasn't going to complain about that. He started to go up,
doing a bit of gardening on the timbers above and then after a short while
there were some choice expletives when he reached the rebelay. The maillon for
the rebelay was badly corroded with about 3mm of rusty steel left on it.
Sphincter clenching stuff! Passing the rebelay he got to the top of the rise
and then re rigged all the rat's nest up there. We decided to leave our rope in
place and now it is a single pitch to the top. It would be a good idea to
install a 12mm rope in this rise and possibly a small deviation near the
rebelay.
It was good to be in the flats again, our last visit being in
2008. Going into them, one of the first things we noticed was that part of the
first rise into the higher flats had had a fall under it with a mass of
limestone rocks. We passed over these into the on going crosscut and then
entered the bottom flats. It's a nice part of the Nenthead underground here and
we got the feeling that these days it doesn't get that much footfall. We had a
look around, went to the forehead, then back to the main flat area to have
lunch. Afterwards Karli went into the upper flats whilst I played around taking
photos. Upon his return, Karli reported that some of the roof flakes that had
been attached last time had come down and some of the roof didn't look great in
places. I suppose this explains the fresh rocks in the first rise we saw.
Returning to the rise we did a few more alterations on the rigging and then
abseiled down. Back to the Nentsberry Haggs Vein, this time heading out long
it. We just had our furries on and when we reached deeper water there were some
very strange sounds. Thankfully the water doesn't go on for that long and at
most I'd say it was around 15 minutes in it. We reached our dig and then it was
a short walk out into pleasant June sunshine. We walked along the Nent river
back up to the Brownley Hill portal. |
