Easegill Open House – Pool Sink

Ami, James, Jasmine, Jason, Josh, Paddy, Pete, Scott, Tom

By the grace of the Red Rose we were once again up at the farm for a tackle-free trip. We really hope this becomes an annual thing! We’ve made good use of it and got down loads of stuff we don’t visit as often as we should. 

We decided on Pool Sink and marched over Casterton Fell, some of us for the second or third time in 24 hours. Midges were out in full force so we dove straight in to the tight entrance passage and all nine of us successfully folded ourselves correctly around the Z-bends, and recongregated above the first pitch to get kitted up. We usually do this as a pull-through but being hard-rigged this time we had a little fun getting past the quite wide deviation, especially those lacking in the gangly legs department. At the bottom we battled our way up the various inlets until we found Magpie Grotto, and had a moment of ceiling gazing. Someone pointed out that with the number of instructors we had out tonight, the outdoors industry in the North-West would crumble if anything were to happen.

Onwards and downwards, we enjoyed the lovely series of pitches and realised we’d forgotten how nice this route is (especially without carrying tackle). Before long we were down at the ground floor and scrambling through the bacon slicer, hitting the junction with the route in from Spiral. Left we headed, and we all chose different routes up the climb to the Eccles Bypass. We split, with some torturing themselves with the pitch bypass and the more sensible folks prussiking up. Cracking view looking back down the Wretched climbs at a string of KCC winding their way up them, with Rope Free-s echoing round the Big Rift. Sadly we missed last orders so we just fed the midges and called it a night.

Thanks again RRCPC!