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.