Long Drop Cave

Long Drop Cave was known by the Yorkshire Ramblers' Club by 1922, when S. W. Cutriss described it as: "Long Drop Sink with the cave at the far end, a 10 foot passage leading to Long Drop itself, a perfect round dry shaft, 25 feet deep. There is no exit." The bottom of the shaft was dug by Bob Leakey and Gordon Batty in the 1950s, but without breaking through. The challenge was then picked up by members of the Gritstone Club in 1965, who succeeded in digging down a little further to expose a tight crawl which proved to be the breakthrough point into the main cave. Humble Inlet was discovered by members of the Burnley Caving Club in 1981, when they climbed a 22 m high aven in High Stream…

The entrance is below a small cliff in a shakehole. From the wide overhanging entrance, a short crawl leads onto an 8 m dry shaft. At the bottom, an excavated route leads into a narrow stream passage, with a narrow 5 m pitch a few metres downstream. Below this, about 20 m of narrow passage leads to the top of the third pitch, where the system enlarges dramatically. A 29 m pitch passes a ledge, and lands in Fault Chamber, where a vertical geological fault can be seen to have a 150 cm throw. A further 8 m pitch leads to a final chamber and a stream passage. Upstream, the water emerges from an impenetrable fissure, downstream passes through a low crawl before the going eases, passing under…