Chemical Valley, Bolton - Visted By Ojay & Andyj23UK.
This place had been on my list for a while now, but after hearing how bad the air quality was, I decided to give it a miss.
I took a look at the Outfall early last year, and to say it looked grim would be an understatement. This place literally spews god only knows what shite out through it's Outfall just outside the centre of Bolton.
Fast forward 18 months and after seeing a recent report which looked surprisingly clean I decided it was time to go take another look.
With AndyJ vowing he would never go back here, I had to convince him that the place was once again do-able....
The water is well and truly contamineted in here, AndyJ reliably informs me it's land fill seapage further upstream from the Ashton Fields Colliery site.
Whatever, the 4 gas was deployed just in case, as a number of people had encountered bad air previously.
As soon as you set foot in the place the smell hit's you....
'Noxious Vapours' and the O2 levels fluctuated throughout and we encountered LEL between 2 & 5%
With sections built around the 1800's this place has quite a lot to offer, and despite the nastiness is quite a cool drain, as it changes shape and composition many times along the way.
The Infall is over in Walkden, however we had no intention of reaching it today, as eventually the stone and brick tunnels eventually disappear only to be replaced with long sections of shrinking RCP which neither of us had the inclination to carry on stooping up for hours on end.
Ok, once in, you are pretty much greeted with this stone tunnel, which curves slightly and straightens up for around 900 yds
Eventually leading to a small section of RCP which I couldn't be arsed to take pictures of tbh
Then ahead was this interesting section of CMP, which was rotten to hell and not too clever on the old feet
Further ahead more crete, and a rather large inspection chamber, cool I'm gonna climb up and check it out, Fuck no ladders, WTF???
Stop, carry on upstream, Oh hai here are the ladders, looks like pikey fail to me
From the other side, AndyJ amongst the toilet fresh and fanny plasters stopping for a well deserved rest
Break over and it's onwards and upwards, listening to the 4 gas alarm and stooping about wondering what the fuck we are doing in such a grim place.
This whole section was a real ankle breaker, and just as I thought it couldn't get any worse we were now faced with more stooping
Along the way another smaller inspection chamber, so up goes AndyJ to be lighting bitch
Now then, so far so good, despite being covered in ochre and generally filthy as fuck (standard) I was still dry, then we were faced with this deep murky section, and then I remembered the hole in the crotch, which now meant getting accross here would lead to wader fail
Bring it on!
As we get to the other side, we were now faced with more stooping, around 100yds in this section of RBP (Oh and yes I was soaked too!).
Even further upstream this
before we ended up in this rather interesting chamber with water slide and manhole shaft..Up goes AndyJ
And further up to inspect why suddenly the crete takes a vertical right turn
Looking back down the slide, which luckily some old rope was left tied so we could climb up, and back down...
Once up it was a case of more RCP. Enough was enough, as this thing shrinks and shrinks before the Infall, so no chance of anymore stooping, we simply couldn't be arsed.
A quick slurp of Red Bull, descend back down old rope and GTFO
Fresh air at last.....
Outfall, which seemed surprisingly clean since last time I paid a visit
Thanks for looking
This place had been on my list for a while now, but after hearing how bad the air quality was, I decided to give it a miss.
I took a look at the Outfall early last year, and to say it looked grim would be an understatement. This place literally spews god only knows what shite out through it's Outfall just outside the centre of Bolton.
Fast forward 18 months and after seeing a recent report which looked surprisingly clean I decided it was time to go take another look.
With AndyJ vowing he would never go back here, I had to convince him that the place was once again do-able....
The water is well and truly contamineted in here, AndyJ reliably informs me it's land fill seapage further upstream from the Ashton Fields Colliery site.
Whatever, the 4 gas was deployed just in case, as a number of people had encountered bad air previously.
As soon as you set foot in the place the smell hit's you....
'Noxious Vapours' and the O2 levels fluctuated throughout and we encountered LEL between 2 & 5%
With sections built around the 1800's this place has quite a lot to offer, and despite the nastiness is quite a cool drain, as it changes shape and composition many times along the way.
The Infall is over in Walkden, however we had no intention of reaching it today, as eventually the stone and brick tunnels eventually disappear only to be replaced with long sections of shrinking RCP which neither of us had the inclination to carry on stooping up for hours on end.
Ok, once in, you are pretty much greeted with this stone tunnel, which curves slightly and straightens up for around 900 yds
Eventually leading to a small section of RCP which I couldn't be arsed to take pictures of tbh
Then ahead was this interesting section of CMP, which was rotten to hell and not too clever on the old feet
Further ahead more crete, and a rather large inspection chamber, cool I'm gonna climb up and check it out, Fuck no ladders, WTF???
Stop, carry on upstream, Oh hai here are the ladders, looks like pikey fail to me
From the other side, AndyJ amongst the toilet fresh and fanny plasters stopping for a well deserved rest
Break over and it's onwards and upwards, listening to the 4 gas alarm and stooping about wondering what the fuck we are doing in such a grim place.
This whole section was a real ankle breaker, and just as I thought it couldn't get any worse we were now faced with more stooping
Along the way another smaller inspection chamber, so up goes AndyJ to be lighting bitch
Now then, so far so good, despite being covered in ochre and generally filthy as fuck (standard) I was still dry, then we were faced with this deep murky section, and then I remembered the hole in the crotch, which now meant getting accross here would lead to wader fail
Bring it on!
As we get to the other side, we were now faced with more stooping, around 100yds in this section of RBP (Oh and yes I was soaked too!).
Even further upstream this
before we ended up in this rather interesting chamber with water slide and manhole shaft..Up goes AndyJ
And further up to inspect why suddenly the crete takes a vertical right turn
Looking back down the slide, which luckily some old rope was left tied so we could climb up, and back down...
Once up it was a case of more RCP. Enough was enough, as this thing shrinks and shrinks before the Infall, so no chance of anymore stooping, we simply couldn't be arsed.
A quick slurp of Red Bull, descend back down old rope and GTFO
Fresh air at last.....
Outfall, which seemed surprisingly clean since last time I paid a visit
Thanks for looking
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