Slrc summer sister

[miketomcat]

Thought I'd post so pictures from the event.

Mike

[Nonimouse]

I was trying to work out the last time I was up at the Sisters.  Reckon it was 12 years ago , give or take. After going twice a year or more for ten years.  Obviously the weather doesn't change. I've applied for a permit for the September bash, with things looking positive.

Be interesting to see just how much it has changed. I stopped going after it became popular with the challenge scene and all the fun places had been trashed. Now that Challenge has turned to Ultra 4x4, I'm hoping at lot of the fun places have settled back to being fun again

[miketomcat]

There are lots of easy wide gravel tracks that allow you to get everywhere easily. Turn off the tracks and you have everything from green lane to challenge truck.

The wife took so pictures of an ibex 

Mike

[elbekko]

Very much hoping we can come out there again in September, always good fun (even if things break spectacularly...).

[FridgeFreezer]

8 hours ago, elbekko said:

Very much hoping we can come out there again in September, always good fun (even if things break spectacularly...).

There was a whole group of challenge trucks who found the bit where you sank the P38... there was a 4-vehicle recovery in progress when Mike & I turned up

When I've done the admin I'll download my pics & post a few up if I got any in focus

[miketomcat]

Yours will be considerably better than mine (see first three pictures)  mind the wife can take a great picture on her phone without looking at it, it's sickening.

Mike

[elbekko]

1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

There was a whole group of challenge trucks who found the bit where you sank the P38... there was a 4-vehicle recovery in progress when Mike & I turned up

When I've done the admin I'll download my pics & post a few up if I got any in focus

It's rather soft there, apparently.

[ThreePointFive]

On 6/27/2022 at 10:26 AM, Nonimouse said:

I was trying to work out the last time I was up at the Sisters.  Reckon it was 12 years ago , give or take. After going twice a year or more for ten years.  Obviously the weather doesn't change. I've applied for a permit for the September bash, with things looking positive.

Be interesting to see just how much it has changed. I stopped going after it became popular with the challenge scene and all the fun places had been trashed. Now that Challenge has turned to Ultra 4x4, I'm hoping at lot of the fun places have settled back to being fun again

Going by that timing, that'll be when I went with you and Mr Neale. I think you were running the event.

 

I would like to return to 7S, if only to test the car out in its current configuration and see what it can/cannot do. Options to not get too demanding (read: damaging) would really be what I'd look for.

[miketomcat]

1 hour ago, ThreePointFive said:

Going by that timing, that'll be when I went with you and Mr Neale. I think you were running the event.

 

I would like to return to 7S, if only to test the car out in its current configuration and see what it can/cannot do. Options to not get too demanding (read: damaging) would really be what I'd look for.

The club is back there in September, the site can be as demanding as you want it to be.

Mike

[Bowie69]

1 hour ago, ThreePointFive said:

Options to not get too demanding (read: damaging) would really be what I'd look for.

I'm sure there are bypass routes for all, and it could probably manage the gravel track on the way in, in it's current form  

 

[miketomcat]

Dave Lang has driven a transit around the whole site on the main tracks, they are wide flat gravel. Turn off these onto just over truck width lightly rutted "greenlanes" turn off those on heavily rutted scratchy tracks. Go off piste where the king of the valleys or Welsh 150 have been and you'll need a winch and big tyres. There's long/short, steep climbs and descents. Rock crawls that can be done in the ambulance and ones ultra 4 use. Honestly about the only terrain/type of track missing is sand and there's 1600 acres of site to play with.

Mike

[Nonimouse]

11 hours ago, ThreePointFive said:

Going by that timing, that'll be when I went with you and Mr Neale. I think you were running the event.

 

I would like to return to 7S, if only to test the car out in its current configuration and see what it can/cannot do. Options to not get too demanding (read: damaging) would really be what I'd look for.

Last one I did was when J33P handed over the organisation to JST. Had a failed drop arm ball joint in the bog in Happy Valley, so left early. I didn't run events up there, just provided a marshalling team, safety cover and recovery. Mostly for J33P. It was fun

[FridgeFreezer]

6 hours ago, miketomcat said:

about the only terrain/type of track missing is sand

There's some in the bottom of that reedy bit at the bottom of the rock run, but as @elbekko will testify, it's a tad soft

[Bowie69]

Obviously dangerous driving would be severely frowned upon, but is there a speed limit of any sort on site?

[FridgeFreezer]

2 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

Obviously dangerous driving would be severely frowned upon, but is there a speed limit of any sort on site?

Standard club rules - 15mph

[Nonimouse]

The site is about 2.5kms by 4kms, with almost 100kms of surfaced tracks  - before it was used as a giant pay and play site. I worked on 14 of the 16 landscape phases, so we are old friends. Almost 30 years now. since I first went up there. When I was last up there, I found areas where no one had been; not even to burn out stolen cars. 

[Bowie69]

32 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Standard club rules - 15mph

Thanks 😊 

Does that include when donuting a 109 V8? 😜 

[Nonimouse]

4 minutes ago, Bowie69 said:

Thanks 😊 

Does that include when donuting a 109 V8? 😜 

If you buy that thing of Will's, doughnuts would be the order of the day

[Bowie69]

1 minute ago, Nonimouse said:

If you buy that thing of Will's, doughnuts would be the order of the day

Shhh 

[landroversforever]

2 hours ago, Nonimouse said:

The site is about 2.5kms by 4kms, with almost 100kms of surfaced tracks  - before it was used as a giant pay and play site. I worked on 14 of the 16 landscape phases, so we are old friends. Almost 30 years now. since I first went up there. When I was last up there, I found areas where no one had been; not even to burn out stolen cars. 

Got any pictures of the work? Would be interesting to see it's change into what I rememeber from my last trip there in 2012  

[Nonimouse]

16 hours ago, landroversforever said:

Got any pictures of the work? Would be interesting to see it's change into what I rememeber from my last trip there in 2012  

I've got some somewhere - pre digital. I keep meaning to dig them out; so I'll see what I can find, don't hold your breath though

[landroversforever]

Just now, Nonimouse said:

I've got some somewhere - pre digital. I keep meaning to dig them out; so I'll see what I can find, don't hold your breath though

Would be cool to see. I've always wondered how the site changed to what it is now. Am I right remembering it was an open cast coal mine?

[Nonimouse]

5 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

Would be cool to see. I've always wondered how the site changed to what it is now. Am I right remembering it was an open cast coal mine?

Yes. But it was surrounded by pits - Seven Sisters colliery, Nant Hir, Dulais etc. It's called Banwen by the locals or Banwen Pyrddin. We knew it as Dyffryn Open Cast or Dyffryn Cellwen

I worked on a lot of closed pits and opencast sites, doing the green bit of the land rec, firstly in South Wales, then Cornwall and abroad. Seven Sisters was off because generally we would return a lot of it to grazing or make it into a forest Park,like Afan. Seven Sisters was planted for soft wood timber - mainly larch. I'm suprised that Walter Mining, who own it, havent opened it up again to gleen coal out of the spoil - like the mountain that they removed to the west of the site - there's a lot of coal in spoil heaps...

Theres an open cast up the road form Seven Sisters that was part filled with thousands of tyres, it's been on fire for thirty years plus

[landroversforever]

4 hours ago, Nonimouse said:

Theres an open cast up the road form Seven Sisters that was part filled with thousands of tyres, it's been on fire for thirty years plus

What's the place called? Always found that kind of history fascinating, particularly ones like Centralia in the USA which is a burning coal seam underground.

[Nonimouse]

I think it's the old opencast at Ystradgynlais - but looking on Google Earth it appears to have been re-opened for Gleening - the area that was on fire is slightly south of the operational section

 

Look up tyre fires at Heyop near Knighton - that was a doozey 

5. Heyope Tyre Fire, Wales

While this disaster caused no fatalities, it makes the list for the record-breaking amount of time the fire burned for – an astonishing 15 years! Started by arsonists at a tyre dump in Heyope, near Powys, Wales in 1989, the fire spread to involve all 10 million tyres at the dump. Being so densely packed together, firefighters were unable to extinguish the blaze, which smouldered under the surface of the dump until 2004.