Long Kin East Cave - Rift Pot System

The main entrance to Long Kin East Cave () is where a small stream sinks into a deepening fissure in a small exposure of limestone rocks located in an extensive area of moorland. The fissure gains a roof and morphs into a walking-sized meandering stream passage, passing an alternative dry entrance at the first corner. After the passage passes below a walled-off pothole () where daylight enters. After a further an ascent up a slope of rocks leads to the bottom of the Long Kin East Pot entrance - a deep shaft (). Upstream from the junction, a wet crawl reaches some gour pools in a walking-sized passage, before continuing as a crawl which chokes just to the east of Jockey Hole. Both Rift Pot and Long Kin East Cave have been equipped with resin P-hangers allowing cavers to follow a number of different routes to the bottom using single rope techniques. ==Geology and hydrology==

The Long Kin East system is a solutional cave formed in Visean Great Scar limestone from the Mississippian Series of the Carboniferous period. The entrance to Long Kin East Cave is close to the limestone margin where a small stream, with a mean flow of about , sinks into the limestone. The entrance passage is a meandering vadose canyon which descends gradually following the local southerly dip before reaching the main shaft. This, and Rift Pot, are formed in the breccia and shear zone of a major fault. ==History==

There is a mention of Long Kin in an article published in ''The Gentleman's Magazine, by Pastor, know to be a pseudonym for John Hutton, in March 1761, but despite associating it with the near-by Jockey Hole the description matches neither Rift Pot nor Long East Cave: "There is, likewise, partly south-east, a small rivulet which falls into a place considerable deep, called Long-Kin;". It is clear that the first part of Long Kin East Cave had been explored as far as the skylight entrances by 1889, as a paper published in the Leeds Geological Association Transactions says: "these being three fissures connected by a subterranean passage, through which a small stream flows". A detailed description of the cave was given by Balderstone in Ingleton: Bygone and Present, published in 1890, but it seems that he did not reach as far as the two skylight entries. He also describes two surface shafts he called "Long Kin Holes". It is clear from the description that one of them was what is now known as Jockey Hole, but the other was the then unnamed Rift Pot, which he plumbed to a depth of . The hydrological connection between Long Kin East Cave and Austwick Beck Head was established in 1900 using fluorescein by the Yorkshire Geological Society. In 1904 a party the Yorkshire Speleological Association (YSA) including Eli Simpson, dug through the boulders at the bottom of what is now known as Long Kin East Pot, to reach the continuation of the Long Kin East Cave streamway. Two more explorations took place in 1904 and 1905, but it is unclear how far was reached. In 1906 the followed the stream through to the head of the shaft which drops in the final chamber of Rift Pot. They also discovered the traverse over the head of the big pitch leading to the top of The Bridge in Rift Pot from where they could discern daylight filtering through from ahead. The connection between the two caves was made in 1908 when a group who had descended Long Kin East Cave hung a ladder from the bridge and joined a party who had descended Rift Pot. The first descent of the big pitch in Long Kin East was made in 1925 by members of the Gritstone Club, when they also produced a survey of the relationship between the two caves. The first mention of the upstream passages was in October 1969 when University of Leeds Speleological Association reported that they had surveyed them in 1967. The 68 Series'' were explored in 1968 by members of the same club. Rick Stanton had three dives in 1987, to reach the current limit without reaching a positive conclusion. ==References==