Rat Hole

Saturday April 25th 2026

Members present: Alfie Exall,  Roe Pye-kendall

It was an early rise for my caving trip, as I was about to embark on my coolest caving adventure yet. Totally not because we failed to find a driver, me and Alfie were setting off on a 2 hour train journey followed by a further 2 hours walking towards what would be my first time in Gaping Gill, through no other entrance than Rat Hole. It was certainly an unconventional first route into this epic chamber.

I never quite realised how much gear is used until I was required to put a 40 litre bag of kit with 95m of rope lashed to the outside on my back. It didn’t help that I had packed in such a way that my boot was sticking into my back the entire journey. But the sense of adventure and awesomeness it gave me was worth it.

A tiring but excellent journey through hills and sunshine later, we arrived at the barely bigger than us hole. What commenced was ten minutes of squirming and dragging tacklesacks, frequently finding myself performing full barrel rolls to try and unstuck the bag. I was feeling more like a worm than a rat at this point.

Some trivial but entertaining srt later, I comfortably sat on a traverse and watched Alfie’s light slowly descend down what must be the first big pitch. After a while of waiting and the light almost entirely disappearing, it began to grow brighter. He was coming back up. When back at the top of the pitch, he looked as though he had just taken a bath. It turns out, he had missed the deviation merely 5m down and had descended almost 20m into the heart of a waterfall. He kept thinking “what if they’re just a bit further” and dug, or rather abseiled, himself into a deeper and deeper hole. After a short break, he set out once more, following the correct route and avoiding the waterfall altogether. Up next was a swing traverse in which you must trust your weight to a somewhat sketchy in situ rope and swing across an excitingly large drop. Of course, as Alfie had rigged, I had the option of using the traverse line but that just wouldn’t be as much fun.

Two big wet pitches later, and we were in the main chamber. To think after two hours of descent we would now see daylight poking through along with a massive waterfall, in a chamber large enough that, even with the assistance of the skylight, my torch could only make the ground at my feet visible. It was truly an incredible place, and certainly won’t be my last visit to Gaping Gill.

With some spare time before turnaround, we decided to explore, and made our way to mud hall. This was Alfie’s first time beyond the main chamber, despite his numerous Stream Passage Pot trips among other entrances. After some scrambling and crawling past some gorgeous formations, along with handlines which I definitely clipped into. We got to our destination. The name is certainly fitting, as I trudged through the most satisfyingly squelchy mud I have experienced. We left our mark in the mud (YUCPC with a smiley face), next to a somewhat disturbingly detailed sculpture of a penis, and headed back to begin our ascent. Not before Alfie took a piss with a view of the waterfall.

We efficiently headed back to the surface, basked in the sun, and headed home, after a very successful trip.