Present: Anthony, Julia, Andrew, Jenny
A week of intermittent rain coupled with a big pitch thought to be a bit daunting for our SRT novice (Andrew) put us off Rift / Longkin East, so, wary of the flooding risk we went to, er, Marble Steps. Squelched across a soggy moor to find a moderate stream flowing down the steps. Decided to have a go anyway, and proceeded to rig Sidewinder. Despite my best efforts to entice Jenny and Andrew to string themselves up, only the rebelay on the bottom half of Sidewinder caused any sort of problem. Continued onwards noting the piles of foam on the way out of the big chamber. There was only a trickle coming in above Stink Pot, so we thought it would be okay. Julia jacked at the top of the 90 due to being a great big wuss, the rest carried on down. Stayed dry until the bottom 6m of the last pitch, which gave us a thorough drenching, looked at the (fairly pathetic) sump pool with attendant foam halfway up the walls, then buggered off out sharpish. Everyone escaped from the top of the 90 no bother. Jenny derigged to the top of Stink Pot, and I did the rest. Andrew and his tacklesac took a while to get past the bottom rebelay on Sidewinder, but that apart we exited without incident.
Good trip, pretty efficient all round, esp. Andrew – I reckon bottoming Marble Steps on your 2nd trip, and 1st on SRT, isn’t a bad effort at all.
Anthony Day