Waterfall

This is a PAINTING (more on that later) of a waterfall.

It is only a tad over sixty miles from Wigan.

It is the tallest unbroken fall of water in UK.

It is more than twice the height of Niagara. (Obviously, it does not have anything like the volume of Niagara)



Very few people have seen this.

The reason being that it is completely underground.

It is the fall of Fell Beck, down the vertical shaft and into the subterranean chamber of Gaping Gill.

Of course, you can visit Gaping Gill. On May and August Bank Hols, Bradford or Craven caving clubs set up scaffold and power winch, so that you can be lowered down and hauled back up whilst you sit in a chair.

video

As you can see, you have to wear a chem suit, or your clothing would be soaked. But, the beck is most often dammed for these occasions. What you see is the water escaping the dam through rock fissures: a spray, a tiny fraction of what the beck otherwise pours in.

So even though Gaping Gill gets visitors, very few of them will have seen the waterfall proper.

You can photograph this spray:


But it is a bit like photographing a waterfall sans the water. Images of the waterfall proper are few and tend to be taken from some distance away. Such as this one.



There is no natural light, and close up, there is so much suspension of water droplets in the air, both rigged cave lighting and flash bounce back so your photo comes out as a picture of a bank of fog.

Also, naturally the fall is most spectacular when the beck is in spate. This also results in the greatest danger. You can see from the strewn boulder field that some hefty lumps of rock can be washed down.

Hence the reasons for me showing the painting, and comment that very few people have seen this.

Just some cool musings for a hot day.

Kool

I haven't been to Gaping Gill although I have been to Ingleborough Cave many years ago. I visited the Italian version, Cascata Del Verone which is also a waterfall accessible only through a cave. Special clothing is not required, you may get wet but when I was there it was a red hot day and soon dried. There is an admission fee now, 20 years ago it was free.

98 metres down? I've been deeper, and had water falling on me from higher than that !

Yoo should have got someone to do a painting of yoo getting wetted on from on high (pissed on) and then you would have been famous

i went caving about 40 years ago with the Methodist church in Ashton that had a waterfall inside
We had all the gear - wet suit, splash suits, ropes, wire ladder, helmets miner lamps all i remember is that it was wet. We camped for two days and we had to put the wet suits back on, on the second day when they were wet and cold... can't remember where ? but we were supposed to climb out via a waterfall but it was raining outside so the water flow was too hard to get out so had to back up to where we got in ...

Impressive stuff!

On a similar note, just watched the movie "Thirteen Lives" on Amazon Prime. A great movie.

British cave divers played a big part in that rescue.

It were a couple of British Cavers who found them, and it was a good effort all round

When Bradford Caving club set up their camp for the winch meet, one of the very large tents is equipped with a chimney and huge cast iron burner and a few bags of coal, so the chem suits are dried between use. Very toasty in there, so it doubles as the beer tent. If lucky, you may get offered a sip. It has been paid for in advance by members who all have purchased their own quota. It isn't licenced premises, so unfortunately they cannot sell to visitors'

There are more than twenty ingress/egress points to the Gaping Gill system, though they are mostly difficult, Some involve transit through sumps. (diving)

Also, there are seventy miles of subterranean passageway down there: you would not want to be lost in the system at times when the water is rising.

When winch not there, transit of the shaft is normally by single rope technique: abseil down, and 'prusik' back out. The latter, named after the one directional slip knot, is the caterpillar-like advance up the rope.

The shaft can be climbed, but is rated very difficult/advanced, and only in extremely dry conditions. You can't climb wet friable surface normally found there.

The Three Counties

if my memory serves me i think we were going to climb out on a wire ladder

I guess from your description that it could have been Gaping Gill, Peter.

Fell Beck is quite variable. In this current dry period it is probably not chucking much water down the hole.

It can at other times be quite a gusher:

i don't know ena malcup i was only 14-15 it was with the youth club

Looks like Ashton had some good youth clubs.

In early 1960's, I used to attend Judo class at the youth club on Liverpool Road. I don't recall its name, it could have been St Oswald's.