Waterfall Hole
This drains to SMMC, so definitely worth a look....
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- Written by: Joe Buck
- Hits: 15
Team: Jon Pemberton and Joe Buck
In the spirit of ticking off some more of Jon’s back catalogue of ‘good’ leads which he’s been harbouring in the back of his mind for decades, we decided to take a jaunt down Waterfall Hole to Boggie’s bit. I’d not been down Waterfall Hole before, and Jon had not returned to this particular bit since he was digging there in 2009. We had relatively limited expectations of what he described as a ‘narrow slot with the sound of a stream beyond’, but went armed with capping gear to see what we could manage.
The entrance crawl to Waterfall Hole turned out to be by far and away the most hazardous part of the trip – a 20m low crawl with broken glass bottles strewn along its length. I tried to clear the worst of the offending items out of the way, but the constant threat of a shard in the knee or wrist made for a particularly grim start.
Once we’d made our way through a very muddy Chandra’s Series, we approached the crawl through to the head of the extremely awkward pitch down into Boggie’s. Jon made some unconvincing noises about the condition of the single rusted bolt we were intending to belay from, and so he placed an additional stainless one next to it and lowered the ladder down the fluted pitch. It caught on every single flake of rock on the way down and has to sit unreassuringly between the flutes. I followed with the tackle bag full of capping gear and likewise got every strap and sling caught on every flake of rock – it’s incredibly annoying!
Once we’d both done the splits negotiating getting off the ladder (that wasn’t quite long enough), we had a quick nose around. Jon’s memory of the main lead was correct and there was indeed a slot with the sound of a stream beyond. It was too tight and curving to get a proper look into, but appeared to reach a perpendicular wall about two metres in.
What Jon didn’t recall, and theorised had been uncovered in the last 15 years, was a low passage at the opposite end of the rift which dropped down to a small flowing sump with no airspace. Directly above the sump I could see it open out a bit above, but unfortunately the smooth walls were coated in a thick coating of slimy mud which made climbing up difficult. Could be one to return to but would be much easier to tackle with a rope and some bolts!
We decided to spend a bit of time capping the western end to see if we could access the stream we could hear beyond. Jon went first, and after I’d confessed that I’d forgotten to bring anything to turn the capping rod in case it got stuck, I recommended he did a thorough job of drilling the hole out to avoid the situation altogether. With the hole prepped, Jon looked extremely disapprovingly at my capping mat, which was in fact an old welly I’d cut up – possibly a child’s one, as it didn’t cover much. He nervously tapped away at the bar for what felt like an eternity, failing to set them off. He blamed the mat, he blamed the slippy handle of my hammer, and eventually, he blamed the capping rod for being too twangy – opting instead to remove a section and position it between his legs with some kind of vague hope that the vulnerable position he was in would yield the caps into going off. To no avail – the bar was stuck.
Eventually he managed to get the bar to wiggle back out again, and I offered to have a go to see if I could get it to work. I pushed the bar back in, stood clear, and hit it once, immediately setting them off with a satisfying crack. I then took charge and managed to set off around five or six sets without incident and managed to remove a significant part of both walls, unfortunately still not allowing us to see beyond. Jon took over once again to see what he could manage before we made our way out. Once again, he prepped everything and began hitting the bar, this time with a bit more conviction. And once again the bar got stuck, only this time he failed to remove it and confessed that the bar may now being staying in there permanently. After I’d managed to bash it back out with the help of the crowbar, I once again twisted it and set it off first hit. Despite the irrefutable evidence to the contrary, Jon insisted it had nothing to do with his technique…
Feeling quite pleased with myself, I began to make my way up the ladder and promptly fell from grace after I managed to get the bag stuck at the top of the pitch, unable to move upwards or turn around and move back onto the ladder – I was stranded. I sheepishly called down to Jon who, despite my previous piss-taking, kindly freed me, allowing me to scrabble out the constriction at the top. We left the hanger in place at the top of the pitch in case we returned and made our way out via the waterfall for a quick wash off.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Rapido trip down Waterfall, Just Rob and I to climb the aven at the end of Great Gunns Rift in Waterfall Hole. Rob fresh of his expedition in Mulu was not ready for the freezing cold night what lay ahead. Temperature at the shakehole was below zero. We quickly kitted up, armed with a drill, SRT and rope which we didn’t need and headed for the Wardwinn’s Crawl. Rob had been down Waterfall once some 15 years ago so was keen for another look with hindsight of SMMC.
Wardwinn’s wasn’t too bad as it had dried out nicely but the wet part was still wet but we managed to keep out of it as much as possible. Down the pitch and I led Rob through the maze of boulders to Waterfall Chamber. He remarked on how efficient I got us down here as with no prior knowledge this would be tricky navigation. From Waterfall Chamber we took the solid rift heading east and started the shuffle up through the rift. No doubt we were the first people to climb this with SRT kits on and what a silly thing it was, it just seemed to snag everywhere. We entered the aven at the top and a second look (and a second pair of eyes) it was obvious that a bolt was not required. I climbed first and Rob quickly followed. We put a handline on just in case via a natural thread.
The chamber at the top was pretty grim, black in colour, approx. 2m squared with no way on and would require some serious shoring to dig. Rob checked out the other direction via a delicate manoeuvre over a flake, again – no way on. Quickly crapping the place out we headed back without delay and made our way to surface. It sure was freezing when we surfaced and it took me a good few hours to warm back up. Post beers next to the fire in the Bull’s head was appropriate.
Another one bites the dust.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Just Luke and I on this fine warm evening. It was Luke’s first time down Waterfall Hole and it’s certainly one to get acquainted with… The entrance crawl was as pleasant as always and luckily it’s still rigged so easy progress down to Hockenhull’s rift.
The mission for this evening was to explore the South/East extensions to Westy’s bit as Jim and I messed it up last time around. Once through the awkward entrance (where Luke remarked on how ‘ard Jim was for getting through it) we headed up and left over a rather unstable boulder ruckle. A weave up and down between blocks got us into the right place and we were now in solid rock for a change. A bit of crawling leads to a sizeable hading cross rift but all leads seem to crap out in boulder chokes. A crawl here at floor level leads to a tight squeeze and a further crawl split into two directions. Left continued along a cross rift to a too tight continuation (draughting outwards) whereas right dropped down a pot to a choke in the floor.
Mission completed we headed down to Waterfall Chamber after a few navigational errors. Barely any water in sight today. We now progressed up the entrance crawl to Great Gunn’s rift. Another interesting lead in this crazy place. It seems from talking to JSB back in the day nobody had been back since it’s original exploration in the 70’s and the diggers left it in haste! The climb at the end involves some delicacy to avoid entombing oneself! Another climb follows this and reaches a large cross rift where a light connection is made back to Waterfall Chamber. A further hading climb in a rift reaches the fluted shaft which I climbed for 6m to a bold step across to an enticing black void in boulders. Here I retraced my steps as Luke was back at the start.
After a quick photo stop we made our way to daylight (yay!) and vowed to return with a bit of rope to access the void proper.
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- Written by: Jim Thompson
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Team: Jon P, Jim T
A couple of weeks ago we’d had a nice early scrat in Waterfall Hole as an extra-bonus Saturday trip. Jon had some ideas about possibilities in light of the reality of SMMC so we were keen to get a new look in the right direction. We’d left that day with a ‘new pitch’ but no kit, so I’d come tooled up tonight with plenty of rope, rigging, drill, capping kit and high hopes. We were just going to drop the pitch and walk into a new bit of the streamway…
No time for prebeers but we may as well have had them as it’d been a long week and I’d turned the faffometer up to 11. Eventually I managed to dress myself and Jon headed to the hole – with the parting words – ‘just wear your SRT kit now, you did last time’… I wasn’t so sure as I’d had to dig my way into the entrance crawl on that occasion, but optimistically did so anyway.
Into the crawl, I was jammed after a couple of mm. Croll in the ground, harness on the roof. Forward, reverse, sideways, movement just wasn’t on the agenda. After what felt like an hour, I managed to free myself, dekit and cursed the cave for having such a crappy entrance. At least let me get warmed up first. Once that trauma was out of the way I observed the last familiar looking thing I would for the evening bar the first pitch – a buried shopping bag – and got myself down the rope ready for a nice clean excursion round the familiar parts of the cave I’d enjoyed on the last jaunt.
But nothing is. Everything here looks different, yet the same, and nothing like it did last time. It’s a confusing place. We’re taking the previous exit route in reverse so I’m glad Jon has an idea of where we are. The first squeeze, that was a pig before, I pass with ease. We pass through the utter filth of Chandra’s series so I’m relatively certain we’re in the same cave at least. So soon, we’re at the squeeze before the pitch – one I’d been unable to get through before, but it looks fine, and I argue with him that it can’t possibly be the same place. He’s already through it though and assures me he’s at the pitch head.
So I pass the kit through, get my legs in and slide through with ease. I’m still not sure we’re in the same place. Jon has the pitch rigged like a pro in no time and is at the bottom poking about. There are no victorious calls, nor any mention of a huge wide open stream passage. I head down and it takes me longer to load my Stop than the descent lasts. Jon’s assessment is that we’re actually in the roof of EPS aven.
So much for optimism but it’s good to have had a look and put it to bed. It’s getting really cold we derig and head out but vow to return for some more poking as there’s loads more to look at.
It’s a gorgeous warm evening on the surface. Caked in muck, but there’s no waterfall to wash off in but at least the beer is cold as I’d included an ice pack in the kit prep. Onwards!
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Only Jeff and I tonight so rather than not doing much down IDM we thought we'd not do much down Waterfall Hole instead! Jeff had never been down in his extensive caving career and I'd not been down for years. We had our normal pre-beer and could hear the Waterfall pounding down in the shake-hole, it had rained all day but the clouds had now moved on leaving a crisp, cold, clear night.
We headed underground around 8pm (late for us), the shake hole was still backed up with water but appeared to be going down rather than coming up. The entrance crawl was pretty grim as was Wardwins Crawl but not a rank as my memory served. We SRT'd down Hockenhulls Rift and got lost straight away. Our main aim was to get to Waterfall chamber and check out Great Gunns Rift then head down to EPS aven. We succeeded in the first aim after some novelty route finding efforts but I couldn't for the life of me find the way down to EPS Aven. Water was still high in the cave which restricted us from entering certain parts/voids. After an hour or so's pottering we decided to head out and vowed to return in slightly dryer conditions for a proper good look.
It's certainly an unusual place and as the late, great John Beck wrote in an old TSG journal, The cave is in a constant state of change and one day some keen (or lucky) explorer will eventually find (or stumble) across the continuation which must lay below.
