Easegill Open House – Pool Sink

Billy, James, Jasmine, Jason, Klaudia, Paddy, Pete, Sophie H, Tom

At the risk of getting predictable, last year’s OpenHouse wednesday nighter in Pool Sink had been good fun and was worth repeating. Pool Sink isn’t often on the meets list, possibly because the rigging puts it in a grey area between a long Wednesday trip and a short weekend trip, but OpenHouse turns it into a lovely little evening.  

Signing in (and remembering to put down our callout time 😑), the farm was much quieter than it had been at the weekend. We headed across the fell followed by midges once again, and it was time to get the entrance contortions out of the way. About 50m in, a narrow downclimb was tackled by Jason in his signature head-first fashion, with the clatter of helmet against rock announcing his arrival at the first pitch approach. It’s quite a pretty pitch really, and wasn’t equipped with its usual wide awkward deviation this evening allowing an enjoyable bounce down the shaft walls. 

At Anemolite Junction we decided not to side-quest to Magpie Grotto as there was a reasonable stream flowing by now, and we didn’t fancy risking a weather change on the surface spoiling things, so we carried on down the impressively tall canyon and were soon at the next pitches. None of us could remember much about these despite most of us being here last year, and even now 2 nights afterwards I can’t quite picture the order, but it’s an enjoyable string of SRT with a bit of everything well above the stream’s route below.

Next, a few pools were either gracefully crossed or fallen into by our resident depth testers, and we hit the last pitch. With a handful of us at the base it seemed an attractive place to set up the pick n’ mix tupperware for a quick break, but Sophie arrived announcing that they’d spotted a loose rock on the traverse directly over our spot, so we shuffled down and continued our sugar rush in the safety of the passage below.

Just the eerie lower passages to get through now, the grotesque Bacon Slicer, and we were at the junction with Green and Smelly. The original plan had been to exit via Boundary, we’d already ditched this plan because of the unsettled weather, but it’s a good job really as that now seems wayyy ambitious for an evening trip. With Wretched via Spiral within our grasp we decided not to spoil an enjoyable evening by trying to shoehorn some extra caving in and headed upstream. Billy gracefully climbed Eccles Bypass Direct while the mortals headed up the grubby chockstones and we split again, some tackling the pitch, and anyone who’d done the pitch before avoiding it with the bypass crawl. 

A standard Wretched exit and we were out in the 9:30pm daylight! We even remembered to sign out at the farm like responsible OpenHouse delegates.