Waterfall Hole
This drains to SMMC, so definitely worth a look....
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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My first caving trip of the year due to working away, and probably last one for a few weeks, so i was keen to progress with my main project at the moment. With being sumped out the last two attempts i was very sad for it to rain for 48 solid before the trip. I nipped over in the afternoon in my civi’s and confirmed the entrance was sumped. Big sad.
However Chris was super keen to go digging anyways so we hatched a plan to start digging a sump bypass. If successful it could mean unlimited access to BWS which would be positive for my mental health.
Pre-beers in the car were great but listening to the rain made us think Jim probs had the best idea to not bother. However we bucked up and headed into the cave. There's a flatout entrance crawl, only about 10m long, which soon drops a couple metres into Ward Wins Crawl, which is the currently sumped gate. However straight on the passage continues, to the left totally flatout and too low after only a few metres, but to the right the passage has a good trench and allows for a couple body lengths of a small, enthusiastic explorer. This is our target, and seemingly quite exciting tonight with a good strong draught coming out. There is also lots of flood debris pushed into the crack at the end suggesting that it take quite a flow in big flood.
I head in first while Chris sets up a nice base camp ready to pass me gear. My first cap was poorly placed and the mat got stuck on a protrusion. Thankfully Chris had a second capping set so i could cap the protrusion off allowing the first cap to then fire successfully. Lucky! I passed the spare set back to him and he was able to have a blast at an annoying boulder behind me making it much more comfortable for me to dig ahead. The next cap I did was surprisingly powerful and had a different scent, possibly of camomile and vanilla, at which point Chris owned up to passing me his extra sparky caps instead of mine. They are certainly better, if not a lot scary. A few more caps ahead and we swapped.
The base camp is indeed very comfortable. It is precariously perched directly above the sump but there’s plenty of ledges and even a vintage tractor style seat to perch on. Chris made light work of the road ahead, widening the trench to a comfortable crawl. It’s probably 1.5m now to the far end, which will probably be reached in a couple trips. TBH it doesn’t look really exciting, but until we get there and pull out the flood debris it’s impossible to say. We were still quite keen to dig but the pub was calling, more specifically the agreed time to meet Jon and Jim, so we headed out. It was a really good little social too, glad the guys came to join us.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Second time me and Jon (TAP) have gone to Waterfall Hole to try to get to Westy's Bit. This time we were armed with capping gear and an enthusiastic plan to bag the DCA rope in the last weeks of the year.
Unfortunately like last trip Ward Wins Crawl, just inside the entrance, was fully sumped. We sat in dismay, not only upset that our dig was cancelled but also embarrassed that we didn't have a plan B organised.
We consoled ourselves in the Mechanics, hilariously having to wait till it opened!
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- Written by: Josh
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Another Thursday night, another layby in the middle of nowhere, stood with two men whose unofficial job is to keep me alive. Clearly my mum didn’t tell me often enough not to follow strange men down holes. Tonight’s venue of choice was Waterfall Hole, a name that sounded pleasant enough (it wasn't). It was the three Js: me (Josh), Jon, and Joe. As we started kitting up in the usual spot, I was promptly laughed at for already having my child-sized wetsuit on, which immediately tried to strangle me every time I lifted my arms. A promising start.
It was at this point that I heard Jon asking Joe about “capping”. This is when you put small pellets (or caps) into rock, then ignite them to persuade the wall to move. When I was told we were going digging, I was stupid enough to think that actually meant digging, i.e. with a shovel and not using caps.
We headed down to the entrance in Waterfall Swallet, a surprisingly scenic circular depression with a huge waterfall crashing opposite the cave mouth. The entrance itself, however, was far less inviting: a downward-sloping, headfirst, flat-out crawl about 10 metres long, complete with broken glass and the fear of meeting a cornered badger. Jon went first to check that the coast was clear, then I followed. At its worst, the crawl took a bit of brute force and sideways head action, but was nothing our peak masculine, slender physiques couldn't handle.
Past the entrance was a U-bend crawl (Ward Wins Crawl), with squeezes at both ends. Apparently, it can sump in very wet weather, a comforting thought given the biblical rainfall outside. Eventually, we popped into the first small chamber where you can sit, but definitely not stand, before immediately entering the first of many boulder chokes. For those who don’t cave, a boulder choke is like a 3D maze of giant boulders where the cave has collapsed.
The first is a small one which you manoeuvre down vertically, and all of a sudden the boulders disappear, leaving a 12m drop down a rift called Hockenhill's Rift. I chose a rope; the other two trusted a cable ladder that had clearly been abused by Jon for years. Before heading down, I asked Joe how long it was to the dig. He confidently said, “15–20 minutes.” In hindsight, this was either insanely optimistic or just an outright lie.
We continued downstream through squeezes, rifts, chambers and boulders. The cave was properly disorienting; the survey looked like someone had dropped a bowl of spaghetti on a map, and it's even more confusing in person. I have no idea how anyone navigates it.
Waterfall Hole Survey - an absolute mess
Back to the caving, I was looking at Jon semi-struggling to make his way through a narrow squeeze sideways. He then told me to kick my knees out like a frog as I made my way through. I was able to make my way through by finding some holds on my feet to kick my way through on my side, which wasn't as stylish as Jon’s frog method but did the job nonetheless.
It was at this point that I realised that I hadn't seen or heard from Joe in a while and mentioned this to Jon, who was under the impression that he was just behind me. We then waited for a few minutes until we heard scuffling behind us and flickers of light. Jon then shouted back to see if Joe still had the drill bag with him.
He hadn’t…
He’d left it at the top of the pitch...
Once it was clear this wasn’t some twisted humour, Joe went back for it while Jon took me on a detour to the waterfall chamber. This required reversing the awkward squeeze, climbing down more boulders and then a 3m free climb into a large chamber dominated by a roaring wall of water. The chamber was very impressive and worth every bit of faff. We attempted a photo shoot, but the pictures came out blank; one for next time. Getting back up, however, took me several minutes of undignified wrestling with the rock.
Reunited with Joe (who remembered the bag on attempt two), we carried on into the Chandra Series, a long run of small chambers, muddy squeezes, and boulder chokes. The mud here is unreal. I slipped constantly, bashing elbows and shins galore. At one choke, Jon gave me the gentle reminder to hug the back and the right-hand walls to avoid collapse or “you’d be flattened, and we’d be stuck”. Nothing like the risk of collapse to sharpen focus. I eased myself down like I was playing life-or-death Jenga while being lubed up in mud.
Another sideways squeeze appeared, this one with an awkward rock right in the middle. Even Jon’s froggy style struggled. I got firmly stuck on attempt one. By now, I was boiling and being asphyxiated by my wetsuit, so I unzipped it, removed my jumper, and tried again. The decision to aim over the rock worked far better.
This brought us to the final barrier between us and the dig, and in Mission Impossible style, the hardest had been saved for last. A steep muddy slide leading to a NARROW slot that opened into an 8-metre drop. The shape looked something like this “l<”. I slid down, felt the pinch, and expressed mild concern about ever getting back through. Jon and Joe pushed this aside, giving the classic reassurance: “You’ll be fine.” After some trial and error, I found the sweet spot, then gravity did most of the work. I found myself popping out the other end, then I clung to the ladder and descended into the rift. The others did this without the assistance of a rope and with heavy bags, lunatics.
The new section of the cave (aiming to go left)
From the bottom of the rift, I took a much-needed break. Jon and Joe then took turns hammering rocks to my right as I stood getting cold, trying to come to terms with what the hell I was doing here and how I was going to get out. I decided that being on the frontier of caving might not be for me. We agreed to call any new cave we’d find Josh’s limit, as I pretty much reached my limit with this one. Despite this, there were some periods of pleasant conversation between the drilling and the bangs from the caps. Also, it was cool to be one of a handful of people to be down here (under 10 according to Jon, I can see why…). This was something I had wanted to be part of for a while.
I had a go at capping myself. The dig was a sideways, elongated tube, about 3 metres long, ending in a black void. Just too narrow to fit through. I drilled into the rock, loaded the caps, hammered the rod, heard the bang, and watched rocks tumble away. Very satisfying. We then decided to leave the rest for another day.
Then came the return.
The dreaded squeeze back out awaited me 8 metres above the floor. Attempt one: chest trapped. Attempt two: the ladder got tangled with me. Attempt three: after sheer exhaustion, I finally found leverage with my feet on the slippery wall, and I pushed through to find Joe saying, “I wish you could see yourself right now.” For reference, it took 10 minutes to move 2 metres.
I waited for Jon, who had the added challenge of dragging a drill through the same nightmare without a rope. We were all tired, quiet, and caked in mud as we retraced our route. We had been underground for much longer than planned. After the last boulder chokes, squeezes and slippery floors, we reached the first pitch. I climbed up, threw myself onto what I assumed was flat ground, and fell headfirst backwards down a small drop. Thankfully, my helmet saved me; only my elbows suffered. My oversuit had also been ripped to shreds by this point; I should have known the Temu suit wouldn’t last.
We crawled out, now completely knackered. The entrance crawls felt far longer than on the way in, but then the sweet smell of fresh air hit me. We washed off in the waterfall and headed to a pub near Eyam to swap stories, eat crisps and receive concerned looks from strangers. I was also glad to be assured that this does class as a good and proper caving trip.
Appletizer - the drink of champions
Despite all the complaining and melodrama in this report and during the trip, the post-caving delusion has set in, and I’m more than willing to do a trip like that again. My limits were pushed, but it was what I needed, and I owe Jon and Joe for dragging me through, literally; I can now be less of a liability in the future. Hopefully, we’ll soon be back down there, hunting for the “Josh’s limit” section of the cave, but with much fewer complaints from me.
Despite being told digging is“a two-man job,” I think it works best in threes:
one to drill,
one to pass tools,
and one to stand shivering, contemplating his life choices.
A role I will gladly fill again.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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After Jon, Joe and others had been putting in a few good shifts down WH, a few of the gang were quite keen to go for a fun trip about the place. Jim unfortunately had to pull out last minute but me and Chris turned up excited to be shown around by the big JP.
Pre-beers in the cold rain made me miss summer(!), but soon we were heading down the huge shakehole hoping both that the lake wasn’t too high (it wasn’t) and that Chris would fit in the entrance squeeze (he did). I won the bet that Ward Wins Crawl would be wet, although Jon probably thinks he won because it wasn’t actually uncomfortably wet, and soon we were laddering down the entrance pitch and showing virgin Chris about.
First on my list was Westy’s Bit, which Mark had been on about for a while and some research in John Beck’s diaries certainly gave some tantalising insights. This bit is quite near the entrance and is nicely high in the cave, away from the muddy wallows below. What’s even better is that it is away from the chaos of the choke that forms most of Waterfall Hole and is heading south east (towards SMMC!). So yer, defs a good target on paper.
The entrance starts hilariously with a well hidden tight bend in the roof of a rift which requires a bit of thinking. A few boulder ruckles and up ‘n unders and soon a passage is reached with is heading bang south east and covered in scallops. A small, rifty aven is reached with boulders in the roof blocking the way, but black spaces beyond will need inspecting at some point. Ahead another small chamber marks the end of the survey, but a small hole in the floor leads off into another squeeze and a continuation of the rifty passage beyond, although now smaller.
Recalling his trip here a few years ago with Luke, Jon soon squirmed off into a couple passages at the end and confirmed that one of these goes to a little drop where he nearly got stuck last time, whilst the other gets too tight. I went for a look at the latter and openly admit to getting a little excited about it. It’s so clean washed and only one boulder blocks the way on, passed which a good few metres of passable rift is visible. Small draught to top it off, this has LWS vibes all over it, and I’m in 500.
Our antics had taken more time than we anticipated so the WH tour would have to wait for another day. Goes to show though that this cave will need a LOT of work to inspect it all! We start heading out and we notice a small aven to the side was now flow quite a lot, getting us all a little aware of the potential for a flood risk. Nevertheless I go poke a few holes whilst they head off. A few minutes later I get to the silly bend near the entrance to find a Chris down the hole pulling a slight face of panic. It’s a hard hole to get out of, let alone then into the tight passage off! Jon’s overly calming words making me more anxious so I slip down the hole next to Chris. A little cuddle for old times then he climbs up my body, the gravity seemingly strong in this part of the cave right now, and actually quite easily gets himself out. A stemple here will defs work.
We get out, the entrance wasn’t sumped, and then we went to the Eldon pub meet. It was great.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Joe and I were blessed with a guest appearance from the big one himself this week! The weather had been fairly rancid all day, leaving lots of stood water on the top roads. Luckily the rain had eased just as we were pre-beering.
Joe with his newly found, precious belt
We had a quick check of the water levels in the swallet before we descended, the stream seemed to have only just begin to back up which wouldn’t have any affect unless something biblical came down once under. We made quick progress to the pitches and found an easy free climb to avoid Hockenhulls rift pitch, which will come in handy for the future. There was a visible and audible difference down amongst the boulders today, with water pissing from everywhere in Chandra’s series. Upon reaching Boggie’s bit things didn’t seem normal. I awkwardly descended the pitch (splits and all) and came face to face with a much larger body of water towards the east. I checked the dig and the tantalizing stream from last week was a swollen sump pool – DANG!
Rather than retreat Joe and I made the most of the drills battery and enlarged the rift heading west. It’s now possible to comfily access the pitch down. Hopefully this can be descended next week if water levels subside. We retreated hastily and broke surface some 3hrs later. The wash off under the waterfall was epic! The weight of the water pounding down was immense, nearly enough to knock you off your feet! Mechanics for debrief and refreshments.
Washing off in the waterfall afterwards
Joe didn't wash off well