Topic

Top Sink - Pippikin - Saturday, 24th November

The traverse from Top Sink to Pippikin is something I've been wanting to do for years. It is truly one of the classic trips and my previous attempt had ended in failure. With just the two of us, it was looking as if things might be successful this time. The one concern we did have was the weather. It had been raining fairly well all week and, although levels had dropped nicely, we knew some quite heavy rain was forecast to move into the area at 6pm. With the already saturated fells and the low flood-prone nature of the Wormway in particular, we decided we'd need an early start to be certain of being past it before the floods hit.

And so it was that Rich and I left the hut at 7:15 both, it has to be said, suffering somewhat from a lack of sleep the previous night. Rigging Link on the way past and taking the opportunity to also lower down some food and drink, we were soon disappearing into Top Sink, Easegill's highest entrance, a few minutes before 9 am.

I'd been in Top Sink a couple of times before and remembered it to be quite complex in places but my memory was that provided you follow the most obvious route and remember to traverse up when you can, we should be alright. Sure enough, with the odd false turn, we soon found ourselves at Easter Grotto, already very grateful that we didn't need to carry any tackle thanks to Brian and his stalwarts who had volunteered to derig Top for us later in the day.

We were at Stop Pot 1hr 10 mins after setting off and by 11am had started off through the EPC Series from Stake Pot towards Link - we were going pretty well.

When we found the 88' Pitch did indeed have a rope hanging down it, we couldn't help but smile. Although we were fairly sure it was permanently rigged, it would been really frustrating to find we couldn't complete the trip, quite apart from having to go all the way back to Wretched Rabbit to get out! The Wormway led to the bottom of Echo Aven which was also (fortunately) rigged ... with, I should perhaps mention, better rope than the 88' pitch, which probably needs replacing in the near future.

We could now almost literally smell our food and drink that we'd stashed earlier at the bottom of Link and, when we got there, made quick work of the Cadbury's Fingers and 2 litres of drink we had between us. We noted that we'd been 3 hours to thins point and reckoned we should be out in another 1.5 hours, making a total time of 4.5 hours. After a few minutes we started to get pretty cold - there was a serious draught coming down Link and that, combined with sitting still in wet furries and having just downed a litre of cold water each, made us pretty eager to get going.

The rest of the route was new to both of us and NFTFH became our lifeline. Unfortunately the route is described in various sections, including a number of pre-rigging trips in the opposite directions (Pippikin downwards, Link to Echo Aven and the exit via Mistral). The result was that we had to constantly switch from one piece of paper to another and they were soon desperately tatty and stuck together. The Wet Wallows were unpleasant and in fact the whole of Link Crawl is pretty unpleasant really.

On arrival at Dusty Junction, we realised the NFTFH appeared to have omitted the description from there to the Hall of Ten. At least, all it said was something like "Left at Dusty Jct leads to the Hall of Ten". With no other option, we turned left and followed our noses. Unfortunately my nose took me down a horrible section of muddy, wet crawl/canal with little airspace that led finally into a stream passage. Deciding this clearly was not the way, I now had to go back through it all to meet back up with a now chilly Rich. A bit more ferreting around and we decided we'd better return to Dusty Junction ... things were certainly not looking so great for us completing the trip now.

Back at Dusty Junction I found the missing paragraph (hidden under the Mistral section) and discovered it was a left turn, but followed immediately by a right turn! Anyway, we were quickly in the Hall of Ten and dropped through the floor into the Pippikin streamway - in total we'd wasted an hour messing around here and, to add insult to injury, when we looked at the survey later, I'd actually taken a different route to Ratbag Inlet in the Pippikin streamway ... where I would be again in another 20 minutes!

Pippikin starts as it means to go on and Rich's leg length was proving difficult in some of the thrutchy sections. We finally made it to the surface at 4pm, 7 hours after setting off. 3 hrs to Link Pot and 4 hrs for the relatively short section from Link to Pippikin!

Thanks to Rich for letting me finally finish one of the UK's most classic trips and to Brian, Ales et al for derigging Top for us (which turned out to be an epic on its own!)

Party: Rich & Damian
Time: 7hrs

great report thank you

Nice one! I hope that I'll have an oportunity to do it in future as well...

Sorry I missed it guys, sounds like you had a fairly good trip. One I still need top tick off

Good report.

Sounds like quite an exhausting one

'Only for the fit hearted?' LOL

Excellent report Damian, many thanks. Good time, shame about the dusty junction section. when you do it with Keith, will you take the muddy crawl to ratbag inlet or the NFTFH route?

Was a great trip, however I certainly wasn't expecting Pippikin to be that awkward. Ignorance was indeed bliss though or the thought of it may have spoiled the rest of the trip Fortunately Damian was so keen to complete it that he didn't mind being kicked in the face a few times in order to assist me up the slanting squeezes Much appreciated of course!

Certainly a lot more to see in that area, but maybe next time in via Pippikin and out Mistral

nsteel wrote:

when you do it with Keith, will you take the muddy crawl to ratbag inlet or the NFTFH route?

"When" I do it with Keith, I will do everything I possibly can to avoid that squalid misery "short cut" across to Ratbag Inlet. Ratbag Inlet itself looked perfectly pleasant mind.

If I knew you were going to be that quick I would have come along as I would have been out in time, plus I know the Link - Mystral section and know how to get to Pip so could have saved you an hour. Who's up for another trip ?

Or pre-rig Top, go down Pip and out Top (Was pip already rigged then?)

alexr wrote:

If I knew you were going to be that quick I would have come along as I would have been out in time, plus I know the Link - Mystral section and know how to get to Pip so could have saved you an hour. Who's up for another trip ?

Or pre-rig Top, go down Pip and out Top (Was pip already rigged then?)

I'm up for it Alex

alexr wrote:

Or pre-rig Top, go down Pip and out Top (Was pip already rigged then?)

Yes (fortunately).

Fancy it on the XMas weekend? (8th)

alexr wrote:

Fancy it on the XMas weekend? (8th)

Well we've not got a permit for It's a Cracker so could be a good alternative

Incidently which permit would we apply for as we would need to pre rig one of the other entrances, do we get 2, 3?

alexr wrote:

Incidently which permit would we apply for as we would need to pre rig one of the other entrances, do we get 2, 3?

Will have a word with a man that can