-GAPING GILL-
Édouard-Alfred Martel
(A Brief History of Exploration)
The Portal
Nestled in the high planes of the Yorkshire Dales runs the Fell Beck; a small river zig zagging the low points of the rolling hills. After a short run down stepped rocks, Fell Beck dissapears into a gigantic hole in the ground. The tumbling water can be heard from the surface as it makes its contact with the ground 322ft below. This gateway into the underworld is known as Gaping Gill, or Ghyll. The first person to make the decent to the bottom was frenchman Édouard-Alfred Martel in 1895 using a hemp rope ladder with stakes hammered into the hillside. It was said he made holes in the bottom of his shoes to let the water drain out! It was the deepest shaft in the UK until Titan was discovered in 1999 twice a year it is made accessible to the general public by the local caving clubs. They set up scaffolding and a winch system to lower and raise paying punters into the chamber below which has been pre-lit with powerful lights. On this occasion however, we were not being winched down, our team had decided to make the decent unaided.
The decent.
There are 3 main routes to access Gaping Gill; Main Shaft, Lateral Shaft Direct and Dihedral. The latter of the 3 was the route we had picked and would require 115m of rope, to rig 3 rebelays and pass 5 deviations. The drive up the previous night was relatively clear-skied until the last 20 minutes of the journey, when the heavens opened. Abseiling the UK's largest unbroken waterfall after a night of heavy rain was ticking on my mind so we made the decision to assess the situation when we got there. We parked the cars up, donned our caving kit and started the yomp to the cave. We were the only ones there when we arrived and squeezed into the entrance tunnel to Dihedral and began rigging the drop. I poked my head down the shaft and the fear immediately set in. The rope was hanging directly into the torrent of water cascading into the void below. I voiced my concerns, and @m9 took a look over the edge also. After some needed encouragement I made my way down and clipped into the first deviation which revealed the true path of the route and would avoid a complete soaking. I made my decent slowly, cautiously and controlled with help from a friction carabiner added to my Petzl Stop; each deviation clipped would keep us close to the rock face and away from the falling water. Eventually I made it to the ledge that has the second pitch on it and terminated the rope of the first pitch. I gave a short sharp blast on the whistle which signaled the next man, HT, to start his decent. You can't see the top of any of the pitches, let alone shout due to the noise of the water so another means of communication is vital.
The next pitch was rigged and the final deviation was clipped in, this led down to the final pitch which was a small rebelay to be navigated whilst in suspension and then a final 60m drop to the floor. I couldn't wait to get down, off the rope and out of the spray that at this point, had completely soaked my upper body and I was beginning to feel the cold.
A short while later we were all together at the bottom of the chamber refuelling and reenergising after what was an unbelievably brilliant decent. We set up our own lighting and broke out the camera gear, a good few hours passed of fine tuning our setups and wiping the lenses every few minutes. At one point, a group of torches appeared behind us and came into the main chamber to join us, another group of cavers appears! I definitely wasn’t expecting to see anybody else down there and it interrupted the surrealness of the spot. A few short sentences were exchanged, friendly but to the point nonetheless. “did you come down the main shaft?”- “we came down Dihedral”-“cool, who are you with?”- “it’s just us”-“I mean what club are you with?”-“we’re not part of a club”-“Oh…”. I think he was a little surprised that we had ‘just turned up and done it’ and weren’t affiliated with any official club, but was still pleasant.
In the photo below, it looks like the top of the shaft is visible but the light is just reflecting off the wet rock. The top of the photo is actually just 1/3 of the drop.
-
The Ascent.
Eventually we were satisfied with the shots we got and thoughts turned to the long slog back to ground level. The total height of the route is 115m which for context Is the same height as Centre Point at Tottenham Court Road. Sopping wet, tired after intermittent sleep in the car and with lighting and camera gear hanging off my harness the jug up the rope was torturous. I was managing 4 pumps up the rope before having to rest and shake my arms out. We signalled each other with whistle blasts again to know when it was safe to load the rope and the next man to begin ascending. Eventually we all made it back up to the top and the sweet smell of fresh air was something special; although it was an incredible ascent within a breath-taking environment, I was so happy to reach the top. After trekking back to the cars in the dark I chowed down on a large donner kebab and undid all the exercise we just did. Soon the arduous ascent faded into memory, type 2 fun indeed.
It's hard to do this place justice with words as it truly is one of the most beautiful awe inspiring things I've seen.
If anybody is considering making this trip I would reccomend the following:
A whistle for each member of the party or walkie talkies.
A haul rope for kit. Save yourself the climb with bags hanging off you and bring an extra rope to haul all the bags.
Thanks to @m9 and HT for a cracking adventure, it will be hard to top.
10/10
Édouard-Alfred Martel
(A Brief History of Exploration)
The Portal
Nestled in the high planes of the Yorkshire Dales runs the Fell Beck; a small river zig zagging the low points of the rolling hills. After a short run down stepped rocks, Fell Beck dissapears into a gigantic hole in the ground. The tumbling water can be heard from the surface as it makes its contact with the ground 322ft below. This gateway into the underworld is known as Gaping Gill, or Ghyll. The first person to make the decent to the bottom was frenchman Édouard-Alfred Martel in 1895 using a hemp rope ladder with stakes hammered into the hillside. It was said he made holes in the bottom of his shoes to let the water drain out! It was the deepest shaft in the UK until Titan was discovered in 1999 twice a year it is made accessible to the general public by the local caving clubs. They set up scaffolding and a winch system to lower and raise paying punters into the chamber below which has been pre-lit with powerful lights. On this occasion however, we were not being winched down, our team had decided to make the decent unaided.
The decent.
There are 3 main routes to access Gaping Gill; Main Shaft, Lateral Shaft Direct and Dihedral. The latter of the 3 was the route we had picked and would require 115m of rope, to rig 3 rebelays and pass 5 deviations. The drive up the previous night was relatively clear-skied until the last 20 minutes of the journey, when the heavens opened. Abseiling the UK's largest unbroken waterfall after a night of heavy rain was ticking on my mind so we made the decision to assess the situation when we got there. We parked the cars up, donned our caving kit and started the yomp to the cave. We were the only ones there when we arrived and squeezed into the entrance tunnel to Dihedral and began rigging the drop. I poked my head down the shaft and the fear immediately set in. The rope was hanging directly into the torrent of water cascading into the void below. I voiced my concerns, and @m9 took a look over the edge also. After some needed encouragement I made my way down and clipped into the first deviation which revealed the true path of the route and would avoid a complete soaking. I made my decent slowly, cautiously and controlled with help from a friction carabiner added to my Petzl Stop; each deviation clipped would keep us close to the rock face and away from the falling water. Eventually I made it to the ledge that has the second pitch on it and terminated the rope of the first pitch. I gave a short sharp blast on the whistle which signaled the next man, HT, to start his decent. You can't see the top of any of the pitches, let alone shout due to the noise of the water so another means of communication is vital.
The next pitch was rigged and the final deviation was clipped in, this led down to the final pitch which was a small rebelay to be navigated whilst in suspension and then a final 60m drop to the floor. I couldn't wait to get down, off the rope and out of the spray that at this point, had completely soaked my upper body and I was beginning to feel the cold.
A short while later we were all together at the bottom of the chamber refuelling and reenergising after what was an unbelievably brilliant decent. We set up our own lighting and broke out the camera gear, a good few hours passed of fine tuning our setups and wiping the lenses every few minutes. At one point, a group of torches appeared behind us and came into the main chamber to join us, another group of cavers appears! I definitely wasn’t expecting to see anybody else down there and it interrupted the surrealness of the spot. A few short sentences were exchanged, friendly but to the point nonetheless. “did you come down the main shaft?”- “we came down Dihedral”-“cool, who are you with?”- “it’s just us”-“I mean what club are you with?”-“we’re not part of a club”-“Oh…”. I think he was a little surprised that we had ‘just turned up and done it’ and weren’t affiliated with any official club, but was still pleasant.
In the photo below, it looks like the top of the shaft is visible but the light is just reflecting off the wet rock. The top of the photo is actually just 1/3 of the drop.
-
The Ascent.
Eventually we were satisfied with the shots we got and thoughts turned to the long slog back to ground level. The total height of the route is 115m which for context Is the same height as Centre Point at Tottenham Court Road. Sopping wet, tired after intermittent sleep in the car and with lighting and camera gear hanging off my harness the jug up the rope was torturous. I was managing 4 pumps up the rope before having to rest and shake my arms out. We signalled each other with whistle blasts again to know when it was safe to load the rope and the next man to begin ascending. Eventually we all made it back up to the top and the sweet smell of fresh air was something special; although it was an incredible ascent within a breath-taking environment, I was so happy to reach the top. After trekking back to the cars in the dark I chowed down on a large donner kebab and undid all the exercise we just did. Soon the arduous ascent faded into memory, type 2 fun indeed.
It's hard to do this place justice with words as it truly is one of the most beautiful awe inspiring things I've seen.
If anybody is considering making this trip I would reccomend the following:
A whistle for each member of the party or walkie talkies.
A haul rope for kit. Save yourself the climb with bags hanging off you and bring an extra rope to haul all the bags.
Thanks to @m9 and HT for a cracking adventure, it will be hard to top.
10/10
