Wade’s Entrance, Sand Cavern and Stream Passage in Gaping Gill#
15th January 2013
What a great way into the Gaping Gill system. The top of the first pitch is snug but after that it’s fine, there’s no awkward rigging but lots of interesting pitches, passages and impressive caverns. You don’t even need to visit main chamber to be impressed.
The first pitch starts from a smallish chamber and after rigging the y-hang you have to drop through a slot in the floor into a narrow rift. It soon gets bigger though and a simple re-belay from a ledge sees you on the floor. The passage beyond is high enough to entice you to walk but low enough to make you think you should crawl.
The second pitch is short and easy. A crawl through a bedding plane leads to the impressive third pitch. It’s a fine shaft and there’s no indication as you crawl up to it how good it’ll be.
The fourth true pitch (there are some free climbable cascades between three and four which can be rigged as a handline) is SE Pot and it’s very impressive. Take you time on the way down to spot the natural deviations and on the way back up prepare for the swing into the far wall as you take the higher one out.
My previous two trips down Bar Pot had been followed by a trip to main chamber and back. This is probably typical of a lot of cavers but you miss a lot of great places if this is all you do. We headed off down SE Passage and after exploring some of the side passages we ended up in Sand Cavern. This place alone is worth the visit, it’s a big L shaped cavern with some impressive mud and sand deposits. A scramble up the mud bank at the end, thankfully dry mud, allows access to a squeeze between the roof and the mud bank to access what is presumably the rest of Sand Cavern. We had a short detour north west (right) here and found a small passage with some roof collapse that came out high up the side wall of the northern part of Sand Cavern.
Stream Chamber, whilst not as wide as Sand Cavern is equally impressive. You find yourself walking on mud and around obstacles and then, just before Stream Passage on the left there’s a giant hole in the ground and you realise you’re on a massive mud and rock deposit. Stream Passage is obvious, as is the massive rock the size of a small bungalow that has fallen out of the roof and onto the stream.
We carried on up Stream Chamber to not far past Stream Passage Pot ( a wet way in by the looks of it) and then came back for a look up Stream Passage. Confusingly Stream Passage Pot comes into Stream Chamber and not Stream Passage. We were quite tired by now, even though it wasn’t a long or particularly arduous trip. We had the obligatory visit to main chamber and then headed out.