Dinorwic Slate Quarry

My trip started yesterday morning 07/09/2006 with a drive along the coast from my home in Warrington UK to Llanberis near Bangor in North Wales, in total about a 1 1/2 hours.
I was heading for a place called Dinorwic, once the centre of slate (for roofs) in UK, in fact the second biggest slate quarry in the world.



The place is no longer producing and was closed in the 1960's but so much remains to be seen. The are many derilict buildings and equipment which makes for great pictures.

I arrived about 10 am and parked my car in a small village called Diniolen and the hillside above Llanberis. The morning was a little cool and cloudy and I thought it may rain, but this is Wales and it rains a lot in Wales. The path from the village leads to the beggining of the working and from hear you can get more of and impression of the immense nature of this quarry. It stretches as far as the eye can see encompassing the whole massive moutainside.



From here the climbing commenced follwing the road through the workings, much of which is fenced off to prevent public access as it can as you may imagine, be very dangerous. I climbed the fence and began my climb. There are many levels to the workings and the climbs between level can be strenuous and in places hazardous with many precipitous drops into the actual pit working some of which are over 300 feet deep.



The rain mostly stayed away as I climbed, stopping to take the occassional picture. I find the whole place very photogenic despite the obvious devastation.

You can see from the third picture in the series the lower levels of the site, it took me about 2 hours to climb to the point where the picture was taken. I stopped for some lunch, a Mars Bar and 1/2 a bottle of water. I was knackered by this point and I still had a very long way to go. It was 1300hrs by this point and the weather was glorious.





It was at this point the local wild goats came to see what I was up to as they very rarely see humans up this high in the quarry thesedays, I think they were checking out my Mars Bar but soon left when they realised that all food was gone.

I was now getting up to the more interesting parts of the quarry untouched since the place closed many years ago.



The slate was brought down in these metal bins on wires and rails powered by steam engines, long gone, on the winding gear to be seen in the next picture.







http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=53.1188&lon=-4.0934&scale=100000&icon=x

Click the link for the map of the area.....



I continued to climb, this is one big hill, taking pictures along the way.



There are lots of underground areas but have not explored them as yet, will not do those alone as they can be a little dodgy. I will continue to document the site.







Many of the larger buildings have be detroyed and the equipment has been removed but I understand that higher up the site many of the building are more intact and the equipment, cutters and polishers have been left. I have not got wrght to the top yet but will do so in the near future.



Looking down from half way up the hill towards Llanberis, the village can be seen in the distance. The area just below is a hydro electric plant, the whole of the inside of the mountain is hollow and has be re-used for this purpose.

Interesting site http://www.mine-explorer.[FONT=Arial]co.uk[/FONT]










Returned to Dinorwic this morning intending to climb to the summit but unfortunatley I was beaten by the Welsh weather, slashing rain and wind. Pictures were not particularly successful due to the weather conditions but I took a few.

Will return again when I can get the weather conditions.

















I will be returning to the site as soon as I possibly can and will be planning a winter shoot.

TO BE CONTINUED
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=43517

A slate quarry! How cool is that?

Looking forward to more.

Ian

really awesome series there I cant wait to see more.....

Great shots. Looks like there are about a zillion things to shoot up there...wow....I wanna go...LOL. Really cool...thanks for sharing.

Thanks for your comments guys, will be adding more images soon as I plan to do several more trips to the area over the next coupleof months, it is an ongoing project. Thanks again keep watching.

These kind of abandoned places are amazing. Very nice!

Planning an early morning climb tommorow to try to get to the top and see whats there and will post pics if interesting..and finish the story.. Ian

Looks like a very cool place to shoot.
I will be looking for more

Fred

Take a look at the new pics..... Ian

Great pictures of what looks like a very awesome place to visit. I've actually seen an article on the climbing there in Climbing Magazine, I recognized the place when I saw the shot with the bridge in it. Looks like a place I'll have to visit someday!

Originally Posted by coldclimb Great pictures of what looks like a very awesome place to visit. I've actually seen an article on the climbing there in Climbing Magazine, I recognized the place when I saw the shot with the bridge in it. Looks like a place I'll have to visit someday!

Seems to be extensively used by climbers as there are some excellent 300 or 400 hundred ft almost verticle inclines and also many smaller practice walls. It is a very unusual place and well worth the time and effort of the climb, fortunately I only live about 1 1/2 hours drive away which means I can go and spend time there when I wish. Thanks for looking. Ian