A digging level? Only way that'll be anything but a death trap is if you put lots of food on it.
I've a better idea. The stairs up and down are right next to each other. However, there are pockets of empty space throughout the rock that either hold a chest with food and other goodies (high quality) or enemies. The enemies being more common than chests, naturally. Perhaps no more than 2-3 chests scattered here and there that require a lot of digging to reach.