Pool Sink to Easter Grotto, Easegill

Staying at Bull Pot Farm, so a trip into Easegill was on the cards. With Lina and Geri wanting to get some SRT experience, and there having been limited rain in the last couple of days, I thought Pool Sink would be a good mix of friendly pitches and stomping streamway passage – plus I hadn’t done Pool Sink for about 20 years.

Awoke to find that more-than-forecast rain had fallen overnight, and I was worried that Pool Sink might be too sporting. Planned to head there anyway, and if water was too high, have a bimble into County if we had to abort. In the end, the pool outside the entrance was about a ft below overflowing into the crawl, and with clear skies predicted for the rest of the day, we headed in.

We immediately lost one party member when Alec, who had been feeling a little off-colour that morning, promptly vomited outside the entrance and headed back to the Farm for a nap. With four of us, we set off into the awkward but very short entrance crawl and were soon at the head of the 1st of 4 simple pitches. This 1st pitch was the only one that caused any of us any issues, with the long deviation and Lina’s relatively short legs meaning unclipping it was a struggle, but not one she couldn’t overcome!

Pitches 2, 3 and 4 arrived and were passed in quick succession (note – the CNCC rigging guide suggests lots of bolts in the traverse above Pitch 2, but I couldn’t find most of them! Thankfully the exposed bits did have bolts.) with increasing water levels meaning I was happy we were hard-rigging away from the waterfalls. We soon arrived and the Bacon Slicer and then headed up the main Easegill Drain to visit the always impressive Easter Grotto. Back out the same route to find the water in the entrance pool had fallen much more while we were underground, and to the Farm in good time to get the haggis on the boil. Great trip!

— Paul