Present: Andy, James, Chris, George
This was another trully magnificent trip, although again it was a suprisingly long way. I shall summarise it here:
Yet again we set off down Link Pot with the intention of visiting ‘the grind’. A cunning plan had been drawn up into tricking El Presidente into visiting this notorious section of Easegill. We set off down the first passage on the right after the bottom of Echo Aven and found a passage which although shit, was not the grind. Instead we took the next turning, which was the grind, reassuing Chris that this was the way to the 88′ and The Earby Series (Ho Ho..). I let James go first (due to being a true gentleman). After all of 10m James came to a grinding halt (geddit!!!). We retreated (and laughed at James a lot)
The 88′ pitch was passed with relief due to the ‘dubious’ (i.e. it’s completely fucked about half way up and the bolts look pretty knackered too – Chris) nature of the in-situ rope and bolts, Cape Kennedy was visited and we oohed and aahed at the pretties. I managed to avoid doing what I almost did last year. We stomped back along the Earby series to emerge at Stake Pot in fine time. We then headed along the High Level route past Scylla and Charybdis on our way to the Minarettes (although we suspect that El Presidente may have thought we were heading for Lancs). The Mianarettes were passed with minimal problems, this isn’t actually true, but is less embarassing than admitting to wandering around in circles for 45 minutes, and then only finding them by sheer luck.
We then stomped a lot more until we reached Monster Cavern where we rested and mused on the possibility of an earthquake underground. Wretched Rabbit was slightly more entertaining than usual, and made me wonder about the problems of coming out of Pippikin, having come from Top Sink.
We then walked back to Link and fetched the rope passing the CRO at County Pot on the way. Somebody from the RRCPC had dislocated their shoulder in Sylvester Pot. Luckily it was James’s turn to fetch the rope out of Lancs. There was some confusion as top wether or not I had actually tied the tackle sack to the rope when I dropped it down – James hauled very gingerly. Luckily I had (sort of).
I feel I must also mention Andy who put in a superb effort, completing this trip exteremly competently despite it only being his third trip with us!
A marvellous trip, probably the best traverse I’ve done in easegill so far, although hopefully this’ll change shortly :o)
George.