Hell Gill

Janice, Maz, Scott, Tom – Report by Maz

There’s a Brown Girl in the Rain tra la la la la. Hell Gill to be precise

It had been raining all week. I was praying for a break. As the Bank Holiday loomed it didn’t bode well for the trip down my favourite gorge in the Eden Valley.

A slight let up on Sunday raised hopes of a trip from a definite no to maybe, just maybe.

On Monday morning , I checked the river levels. It had dropped. Just. That seemed to satisfy Tom and Scott who made the journey north into Eden. As for me and Janice, well Hell Gill is just down the road.

We met at the lay by and proceeded to check the level at the waterfall. We could hear the noise before we saw the fall and the size of the ford told us all we needed to know. It was big, brown and running very quickly indeed.

Not to be put off by the evidence in front of us, it was felt, unconvincingly that by going a kilometre upstream to the access point, we might, somehow, avoid the worst of the flow. A basic study of hydrology would show this as a flawed assumption. Still, within our party of 4 there existed degrees in Geography and Geology. And 2 more in optimism.

Rain had started falling again by the time we got to the access at the top of the gorge. It looked big, it sounded big and it felt a bit iffy.

I’m not a risk taker, so I surprised not only myself, but everyone else by announcing I’d give it a go. The shock of my statement stunned everyone into silence and after a short moment of contemplation it was Scott who wisely decided to voice the fact that indeed, the gorge looked really quite horrible.

And so we decided to turn round, the gorge having beaten us today.

Only as far as the egress point.

A greasy walk upstream into the gorge indicated the correct decision had been taken. The water was brown and surging. Peaty odours from the vegetation mingling with the roar of the white water.

This lower section of the gill is wider, lower and less intimidating. Still, on a day with a much higher than usual discharge, the infant River Eden showed she could push us about. We had to be careful on the meanders and within the sculpted gullies.

Soon the gorge became tighter, darker. The walls rearing up higher and the river became angrier, hemmed in by the limestone and violently crashing against the underwater obstacles.

After the bridge we came to our potential trip stopper. The double drop waterfall. Here in the lower plunge pool the water meandered lazily round in the undercut. Eddying against the walls, while the main flow pushed left through the arch in an impressive set of standing waves.

A discussion ensued as to the possibility of using the Tyrolean traverse in situ to bypass the falls. Tom didn’t like the anchors, Janice didn’t like the rope. Scott didn’t like either.

And that was why Tom decided to give it a go. What looked from below to be a fairly taut rope was in fact very loose indeed. To his credit, our intrepid volunteer gamely attempted a traverse only to find himself all but dunked into the main plunge pool; a turbulent frothing cauldron of horribleness.

That decided it. No going further. The return journey was completed much quicker for two reasons. Firstly we were starting to get cold and put a wriggle on. And secondly because the gorge had had enough of us and wanted us out. The fast flow meant we could lie back and enjoy the bumpy, noisy white water ride home.

We finished our trip with a nice little abseil down the side of Hell Gill Force courtesy of Scott’s rigging.

Although we hadn’t done what we’d planned this was a fun, noisy, wet and in places a little scary trip. It also taught me to recalibrate what constitutes BIG on the river level gauge.

Same again next year? Weather permitting.