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.