Gaping Gill: Documentary of the First Free Climb

[Lankyman]

Article is live on UKClimbing at the moment if anyone fancies a read (or a donate!).

https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/inside_the_mountain_climbing_gee_gee_rider-16730

Your comment early on in the article 'Wet limestone is usually a no-go ... ' reminded me of taking climbers from my old club - it was a caving and (mainly) climbing club - on occasional forays into the nether world. At first they'd do their utmost to avoid wet rock and be contorting all over the show to swarm up a straightforward climb up a cascade. It took a while for them to realise that the clean rock of the stream bed offered by far the best grip of all.

 

[JAA]

Proud to say I believe Paul and Dave were Aston Uni speleo Soc members, I was secretary for a few years and I remember being impressed at that achievement, and I still am impressed.
Aston Uni speleo soc vanished years ago but I have resurrected Aston Speleo Society and we do a few mines in North Wales, meeting up twice yearly.

I had a terrible teenage crush on the girl rescued from KMC on the channel 4 documentary. I’m pleased to say I didn’t have a crush on Tony Seddon.

 

[tdobson]

I've posted repeatedly about this climb on the facebook group "Bad Caving Tips" and "Bad Climbing Tips" due to it being such a great candidate. I certainly have intrigue about it!

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Also, another eyebrow raising climb in GG:

> On a subsequent solo trip during which he discovered and climbed Hallucination Aven at the end of the new series, he returned to Bar Pot to discover the ladder he had used on the entrance pitch had been removed. Undaunted, he free-climbed out.

Source

 

[paul]

Jack Pickup's story about this event in Sid Perou's "A Tribute to Mike Wooding" is worth watching:

 

[Ian P]

CPC members make the pages of the BMC magazine “Summit”.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

The blurb mentions "This May..." is there an attempt coordinating with the coming BPC winch meet?

 

[tdobson]

The blurb mentions "This May..." is there an attempt coordinating with the coming BPC winch meet?

answer here:
tl;dr = yes

Post in thread 'Gaping Gill: Documentary of the First Free Climb'

Nov 20, 2025

I had a proper look at attempting to make this film (using Dave MacLeod and his friend Alan Cassidy) in 2014!? ... Best of luck with it!

To clarify... the film we were planning to make was about an ascent of GG Rider, which is clearly a more 'adventure/action' based film than your project @JackH, which clearly has a wider focus on the narrative surrounding Molly. Felt it was worth correcting to avoid being reductionist!

No you're absolutely right there. The window of opportunity to get it done must be very small, especially as, for us, we will likely be relying on...

• JackH

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[Ian P]

I have just “hidden” a couple of posts.

Could I please ask sincerely that this is kept off public view for now .

Alan / Tom. Please message me if you are not happy about me hiding the posts. Hope you understand

Ian

 

[mikem]

From inglesport post about the first climb:

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Ken Peckston - "Roger Baxter-Jones and John Moor climbed it in 1972, when the bosuns chair was in operation"

Philip Smyth - "Was attempted by Graham Proudlove of CPC and Andy Waddington of the NPC on a Craven winch meet in the late 70's can't remember how far they got on the route but remember watching them from the main chamber for a while."

Bob Grimes - "Graham Proudlove and I gave it a go, I think late 80’s but only managed the first pitch, due to water conditions and coms problems. A steady SRT trip via Lateral Shaft for access."

 

[Badlad]

There really is no point in trying to keep the second ascent secret any more. I see on facebook and other media that there has been a third ascent by Ben Kent. It seems that Jack's film has encouraged an open season on GG Ryder and looks like just talk of a film has encouraged more interest so goodness knows what effect showing a film will have. CRO might be quite busy

 

[Badlad]

Some of many photos passed onto me about Ben's climb.

 

[underground]

Here you go @Dylz

 

[Lankyman]

View attachment 26013

View attachment 26014

Some of many photos passed onto me about Ben's climb.

I wonder if that cleaner area of rock above and right of the leader has been 'gardened'?

 

[andrewmcleod]

Ken Peckston - "Roger Baxter-Jones and John Moor climbed it in 1972, when the bosuns chair was in operation"

Same Inglesport thread suggests this was with ten points of aid, so not the free-climb.

 

[alanw]

I wonder if that cleaner area of rock above and right of the leader has been 'gardened'?

Might I say they have been very luck to get such clear photographs of the climb. Last year there was a dead sheep on Birkbeck's ledge and we sent a couple of volunteers down to recover it. The shaft is often filled with mist, here's a photo I took at the time. I was hoping to be able to see the state of the rock a year ago, but I'm afraid not.

 

[JackH]

I think it’s fair to say the cat’s well and truly out of the bag.

With the latest duo successfully climbing out of Gaping Gill on Sunday, it feels only right to give Andy Wilson and Pete Harrison the recognition they deserve for having completed the route some 4 weeks ealier. A massive congrats to them both!

Andy’s been involved with the film from early on, one of the first to offer his help, and he’s still very much part of the production. He was also aware that any successful attempt while the film was developing might make things a bit more complicated for me and, off the back of that, he and Pete very kindly agreed to keep their climb quiet for a while.

This additional ascent changes things slightly, so it feels right to acknowledge Andy and Pete’s climb properly. It may already have been doing the rounds on WhatsApp and in quieter conversations, but still…

A huge congrats to both of them.

Andy and Pete climbed out, after going in via Bar Pot, on the 7th of April, in what looked like pretty unforgiving conditions from the images I’ve seen. Possibly the second two people to have done the route ‘free’ after Paul Eastwood and David Hetherinton. Although as I’m learning with Gaping Gill, you never can be totally sure what happened, when.

Thanks to everyone who was aware and kept it under wraps, it’s been appreciated, and thanks also to everyone who’s leant a hand with the production to date.

Obviously, this doesn’t change things for our own plans so, hopefully, they’ll be another successful pair of climbers in a few weeks time, and a half decent film to accompany the achievement.

 

[hannahb]

This is all weirdly cloak and dagger, for no discernable reason

 

[Badlad]

 

[hannahb]

View attachment 26020

It just looks so grim and unfeasible. Great photo.

 

[Samouse1]

I wonder if this "interesting" rigging I saw up there in march was a climber doing a recce, the bags certainly looked like climbers bags...