Why these friends climbed a mountain carrying kitchen sinks

By Helen Le Caplain via SWNS

This daredevil trio took the phrase 'everything but the kitchen sink' to new heights by scaling England's highest mountain - with SINKS chained to their backs.

Friends Emma Woodhall, April Wilson and Zena Clark, decided to tackle Scafell Pike in the Lake District with the unusual choice of baggage to show 'misogynists' that women 'shouldn't be chained to the kitchen sink.'

Teachers Emma and April, 36 and 40, and dental nurse Zena, 40, hiked the 3208 feet up to the summit on July 9th before proudly posing at the official summit.

They completed the feat in six hours to raise cash for domestic abuse charity Harbour by putting their backpacks on their fronts to leave their backs free - and with a six-strong support team who carried additional supplies and water.

Emma, who is co-founder of women's only adventure group Wild Wanderers, chose charity Harbour to highlight the important work they do and raise vital funds.

Emma, from Spennymoor, UK, said: "We did the high heels challenge last year for Women's Aid.

"One of our friends rang me and said 'what do you think about hiking up a mountain with a kitchen sink chained to us to demonstrate that women shouldn't be chained to a kitchen sink?'

"I absolutely loved the idea. We planned a date and put it out on the group if anybody wanted to join."

"It was always going to be a kitchen sink because 'women should be chained to the kitchen sink' is the expression that's used quite widely.

"We found some abandoned kitchen sinks that people were getting rid of, spray painted them and wrote sexist, misogynistic words and comments [on them].

"We decided to raise money for Harbour because we know how much good that they do and how little funding that they get.

"We also wanted to make women aware that Harbour exists because everyone knows Women's Aid but not a lot of people know about Harbour."

They found the sinks on Facebook Marketplace before spray painting two of them pink.

They then wrote slurs men have said to their partners on them and secured the sinks to themselves using bungee cords.

Experienced hiker Emma said it wasn't too great a physical burden as they're all wild campers used to hauling heavy backpacks up mountains.

Emma said: "We had them attached really securely. The bungee cords digging in weren't that bad, once you start walking you don't really think about it.

"You're doing it for a good cause so you know you have to get to the top and back down - you don't really think about the weight or anything like that.

"Because we're wild campers we're used to carrying heavy backpacks up a mountain so it wasn't so much the weight [we had to be mindful of].

"We just had to be careful if it was a windy day that they were attached well enough that the wind wouldn't use it as a sail.

"We attached them really safely. We thought about all aspects - different weather, the weather turning, the metal getting hot and making sure it wasn't actually touching our bodies.

"We put a lot of thought into how we were going to carry them up.

"It was a really, really clear, warm day and there was a bit of a breeze, which was really nice.

"We weren't in any rush. We had ladies in the support team who hadn't hiked up a mountain for many years and they weren't sure how long it was going to take them.

"We said 'look we're just going to go at a really easy pace, we'll stop when we need to, we'll rest when we need to, the main thing is that we all get to the top of the mountain'. And we did, which was amazing."

Fellow hikers on the trail encouraged the group's efforts and even donated cash to their cause.

Emma said: "People were really supportive.

"Some people didn't understand, when you've got big backpacks on people are like 'oh have you got everything but the kitchen sink in there?'

"We explained we had the chains on us as well and that it was raising awareness of domestic abuse, raising money for Harbour support services and also trying to alleviate the stigma that women should be chained to the kitchen sink.

"We had a lot of people coming up to us and giving us sponsor money on the way up.

"We had loads and loads of support, it was really nice."

You can donate to Wild Wanderers kitchen sink hike fundraising page here.