Seeing Gaping Gill for the first time!

By Ellie

From the one and only story I have been told about this cave I should have been mildly daunted but this was not the case, and when I got there, Gaping Gill proved to be a very fun cave indeed.

We all set off some time in the morning, got changed by the cars and headed on up. Mike made me a rope rucksack which I think is the ‘funnest’ way to carry rope The walk was quite tiring but at least it levels off at the top so could have been worse. Mike and I departed from the rest of the troops and went to find the stream entrance. Before rigging we both had a rest and ate some snow to quench our thirst.

Descending the pitches I was in awe at the size of the cave, and I knew that wasn’t the half of it, the main chamber was yet to come. Walking through this little chamber on our way, there were two routes you could go, which would both join up. I took one, Mike took the other. As my route started to get squeezy and look like it would stop, I was quite relieved when I saw a hole above me and hear Mike walking through. We walked on a bit further, crawled a bit further, eventually bumped into a small group of SUSS and MUSC, had a photo taken by Jeff and then continued on to the main chamber.

It was immense.

Heading out of diss with Rob2 and Tom1 I saw a bat flying around which I watched for a few minutes before making myself catch up with the others. The duck wasn’t as bad as I expected and cooled me down from all the crawling. Some more crawling, with interspersed pitches, and then some more crawling and eventually the outside air could be smelt.

Getting out the cave was quite surreal; having been underground for probably the longest I have ever been before. It was a shame to have to leave the amazingness that is Gaping Gill but we were wet and tired and my tummy was growling at me. The walk down seemed to take an age but we finally got to the car and then back to the hut, eager for tasty tasty supper.