LYING twisted at an awkward angle and squeezed tightly between two jagged rocks, Ivan Young tries, somehow, to manoeuvre himself round in the half-dark.
Peering through the narrow gap ahead, by the light on his miner's helmet, he can see what appears to be the opening to a cavern looming. The only question is, can he get there?
It is the kind of uncomfortable position in which Ivan and his fellow
cavers often find themselves as they explore underground.
Edinburgh is famous for its supposedly haunted underground streets, like Mary King's Close, and many people know of the disused railway tunnel running under the city centre from Waverley Station to Scotland Street. There are also a few natural caverns in and around the Capital.
For the adventurous, there is also an underground world beneath the Lothians, courtesy of the area's mining past.
The honeycomb of disused coal mines which exists beneath the surface can be dangerous though, as shown by the tragic death last month of Peter Ireson, a member of the Edinburgh-based Grampian Speleological Group (GSG), while he explored a disused mine shaft below the Wisp.
Despite the risks, the region is riddled with other mines which have repaid investigation by experienced and curious cavers.
Limestone mines, such as those at Cousland, Levenseat, Bowden Hill and Forth, are all accessible to those who know where to find the entrances and can navigate safely below ground.
There are also oil shale mines at Whitequarries, Linhouse and Philpstoun, but while they may appear tempting to the inexperienced explorer, the potential volatility of the atmosphere means that like many old coal mines they tend to be given a wide berth by experienced cavers.
There are other unexpected risks which cavers face exploring untested underground routes.
A disused silver mine at Hilderston in Linlithgow, for instance, may appear inviting, but becomes flooded during wet spells.
As the GSG's honorary treasurer, Mr Young, 60, is one of Scotland's most experienced and knowledgeable cavers. Over the years, he has explored many of the Lothians limestone mines.
The Coal Authority, which keeps a register of coal mine shafts, says it is almost impossible to keep a track of all the old mines across the UK. The Lothians and Fife – and even the land between, which lies underneath the Firth of Forth – contain many abandoned pits.
"There are tens of thousands of them across the whole of the UK," says a spokesman for the Coal Authority, which carries out safety inspections at 5000 old pits every year.
While abandoned mines might not offer up treasures such as the bones of a prehistoric bear Ivan discovered in a network of caves in Assynt – the announcement last week of the discovery, which may date back to the last Ice Age 40,000 years ago, attracted more welcome attention to the GSG – they have a magic of their own.
Miles upon miles stretch beneath the feet of unsuspecting walkers on the surface. Often you can walk huge distances without having to resort to squeezing through tiny holes or abseil down old mine shafts, with the biggest risk being getting lost in a pitch-black maze if your lights fail.
While local youths know where some underground openings are, often using them as drinking dens, their locations remain unknown by most people.
"Typically you'll be out in the countryside somewhere and you walk along a track where they would have originally passed the limestone out," says Ivan, a retired electronics engineer.
"You pass some old lime kilns where it was processed for use in the fields. You probably go into a quarry first of all, as it's easier to quarry limestone than to mine, so they would start by doing that. You go down into the hillside and there may be several of these entrances or there may be just one or two, and you wander into what you could term a 'main road' into the main hole, and you'd have all these other tunnels heading off."
The entrances themselves can be cavernous. Ivan says: "In a lot of them they actually used trucks to drive around inside."
From the main route spreads a grid of smaller tunnels. While it might look orderly, the tunnels are not as easy to navigate as they appear: "While in a smaller area it might be regular grid, over longer distances it tends to be more free-form. It's a bit like Edinburgh – the New Town might be nice and regular, but once you cross to the Old Town it's not like that any more. In the mines, once you've been marching in you might feel like you've been walking in a straight line, but find you've actually been turning round, even though it doesn't feel like it."
On visiting a mine for the first time, cavers often employ the simple technique of repeatedly turning left, on the grounds that, sooner or later, they're bound to come out where they started. Even doing this, it can take two hours to reemerge at the start of the route.
Although there might be a few interesting items to explore on the way, the mines are unlikely to throw up anything as exciting as finds that can be made in natural caves, which more often demand the tight squeezes associated with caving adventures underground.
"In local mines you're not going to find anything of great archeological significance – you just find industrial remains. Sometimes you'll find clay pipes, you'll find some of the railway lines in them occasionally you'll find a wagon."
The caving community, for safety reasons, are reluctant to detail the exact locations of mines for fear of encouraging the inexperienced and unprepared to venture in. The right to roam, however, officially extends underground, and many of the disused mines are accessible to those who can find them – albeit bedecked with warning signs put up by landowners who don't want to encourage dangerous activities on or beneath their land.
The kit is simple – lamps, helmets, wellies, gloves and an oversuit, with a gas monitor if there's any suspicion that the mine may not be well ventilated.
Ivan's fellow GSG club member Mr Ireson, 37, from Livingston, was overcome by gas shortly after abseiling into the mine shaft he was exploring in the Wisp. The accident is being blamed on a sudden and dramatic drop in the oxygen level, one of the worst threats which face cavers.
Even the most exacting of precautions can leave explorers stranded, though.
"There have been cases of three people going in together and finding that perhaps all three lose their lamplight and they are plunged into darkness and just have to sit and wait for someone to come and rescue them," says Ivan.
With the right preparation and skills though, underground adventures regularly take place safely beneath our feet, and it seems the risks of pushing the boundaries are unlikely to stop many more trying their luck in the region's subterranean miles.
For expert advice on underground exploration, visit the GSG website at www.gsg.org.uk
The full article contains 1183 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
