Gaping Gill (also known as Gaping Ghyll) is a natural

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

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, England. It is one of the unmistakable landmarks on the southern slopes of

Ingleborough Ingleborough () is the List of peaks in the Yorkshire Dales, second-highest mountain in the Yorkshire Dales, England. It is one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks (the other two being Whernside and Pen-y-ghent), and is frequently climbed as part of ...

– a deep

pothole A pothole is a pot-shaped depression in a road surface, usually asphalt pavement, where traffic has removed broken pieces of the pavement. It is usually the result of water in the underlying soil structure and traffic passing over the affecte ...

with the stream Fell Beck flowing into it. After falling through one of the largest known underground chambers in Britain, the water disappears into the bouldery floor and eventually resurges adjacent to Ingleborough Cave. The shaft was the deepest known in Britain, until

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was discovered in 1999. Gaping Gill still retains the records for the highest unbroken waterfall in England and the largest underground chamber naturally open to the surface.

Features

Due to the number of entrances which connect into the cave, many different routes through and around the system are possible. Other entrances include Jib Tunnel, Disappointment Pot, Stream Passage Pot, Bar Pot, Hensler's Pot, Corky's Pot, Rat Hole, and Flood Entrance Pot. The Bradford Pothole Club around Whitsun May Bank Holiday, and the Craven Pothole Club around August Bank Holiday, each set up a winch above the shaft to provide a ride to the bottom and back out again for any member of the public who pays a fee. A detailed 3D model of the chamber has been created using an industrial

laser rangefinder A laser rangefinder, also known as a laser telemeter or laser distance meter, is a rangefinder that uses a laser beam to determine the distance to an object. The most common form of laser rangefinder operates on the time of flight principle by ...

which showed that its volume is comparable to the size of

York Minster York Minster, formally the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, is an Anglicanism, Anglican cathedral in the city of York, North Yorkshire, England. The minster is the seat of the archbishop of York, the second-highest of ...

History of exploration

Descents

The first recorded attempted descent was by John Birkbeck in 1842 who reached a ledge approximately down the shaft which bears his name. The first complete descent was achieved by

Édouard-Alfred Martel Édouard-Alfred Martel (1 July 1859, Pontoise, Val-d'Oise – 3 June 1938, Montbrison (Loire), Montbrison), the 'father of modern speleology', was a world pioneer of cave exploration, study, and documentation. Martel explored thousands of caves ...

in 1895.

Hensler's Crawl and Master Cave

On 16 May 1937 Eric Hensler (1907–1991) explored a low passage leading off Booth-Parsons crawl, finding it to be unexplored. This was later named Hensler's Crawl and was also found to lead into Hensler's Master Cave.

Since 1937

In 1983 members of the Cave Diving Group made the underwater connection into Ingleborough Cave. An extreme rock-climb ( graded E3, 5c) is possible up the main shaft which requires very dry conditions. It was first pioneered in 1972 with ten points of aid. The first free ascent was made in 1988.

References

Sources

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External links

{{Commons category, Gaping Gill
Map of all the entrances into the Gaping Gill systemWebsite that includes details of several caving routes in Gaping Gill and Ingleborough CaveExtract from the documentary film "Journey into Darkness" hr/ARTE 1995Video of Eric Hensler recounting his discovery of Hensler's Crawl
Limestone caves Caves of North Yorkshire Subterranean waterfalls Waterfalls of England