Last night we had a tourist trip to Sink Chamber in Lost Johns' Cave; on the way out, I had a look at the passage below Pulpit Pitch that leads to Dome Pitch ? I think it?s called The Crypt. At a high(er) level I noticed a passage leading back towards Pulpit, so followed this for a few metres of easy crawling to a pitch of ca. 8?9 m, which I assumed would communicate with Pulpit. So I shouted to Tim, who was waiting at the foot of the pitch, but the reply drifted up from behind me ? there was no connection with Pulpit Pitch.

Can anyone shed any light on this pitch ? where does it go?

That's really quite interesting. I remember there being a load of little rifty bits around there, does this survey help you understand where the pitch is?

http://cavemaps.org/surveys/bsa/full/BSA%20CS13%20Lost%20Johns.png

Hilarious to imagine there may be an undropped pitch in LJs!

jarvist said:

Hilarious to imagine there may be an undropped pitch in LJs!

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.. even funnier if there's a passage at the bottom that connects through to Nott's II.

Hilarious to imagine there may be an undropped pitch in LJs!

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The passage leading to it was quite well worn, so not an undropped pitch.

Thanks for the survey details ? it looks quite complicated, I'll check it over when I've printed it off.

I've looked at all the surveys I have, and I can't see anything obvious that fits your description, unless it was the Dome alternative pitch, which is described in Northern Caves:

"Traverse above Crypt Passage to Dome alternative involving two pitches into the same chamber."

Here's the survey referred to above marked up:


I?ve had a look at the survey, and the ?new? passage is not on it, so I?ve marked its rough position in red, with the pitch marked.

Other features of interest on survey are:
There appears to be a passage going over the top of Dome Pot; in fact, I think that this is the passage at the bottom of Dome, the N branch going to Shale Cavern and the S branch to the ?Zig Zag? (as it is marked on the map). This is shown as ending at ?FK.? (which I?ve marked as point Y). Actually, this goes through to the wet way, entering the passage at the foot of the 100 ft pitch ? Piscina, is it? The way through is very narrow; I had a look at this last night, but wimped out. The passage is far too narrow at floor level, the only way through is at a much higher level in a tall, narrow rift, but the climb up to it is very exposed, and I didn?t fancy falling 20-odd feet. I have been through it before, and I remember looking out over the streamway at the other end. There is an obvious chockstone at the top of the climb on the Dome side, so maybe last time I was there there was a rope hanging down off this chock ? can?t remember.
Tell you what, though, a trip to the bottom of Lost Johns? down the wet way, through this passage to Dome Pot, and through the connection to the Centipede route (Dome Junction) would add a whole new . . . je ne sais quoi . . . to the place; getting tackle for Shistol, Candle the Battleaxe and the last pitch through that tight passage would be a bugger.

Another feature of interest is the point marked ?(FF).? (that I?ve marked as X). This is the end of the chamber below the pulpit pitch, and degenerates into a low crawl. When I looked at this I couldn?t be bothered going through it because (a) I couldn?t be arsed to take my SRT kit off and (b) for some reason I thought that it was heading for the Centipede route; I?d got it into my head that the passage to Centipede follows roughly the same trend as does that to Pulpit, so I figured that they must be fairly close; also, if you look around when descending the Centipede, you can see lots of little holes leading off. Well, obviously I was wrong, and this passage is heading into a ?blank? area (as, indeed, is the ?new? pit).

Cave Mapper:

xI've looked at all the surveys I have, and I can't see anything obvious that fits your description, unless it was the Dome alternative pitch, which is described in Northern Caves:

"Traverse above Crypt Passage to Dome alternative involving two pitches into the same chamber."

Click to expand...

I suppose it could be that, though it starts off by going in the wrong direction.

I've looked at all the surveys I have, and I can't see anything obvious that fits your description, unless it was the Dome alternative pitch, which is described in Northern Caves:

"Traverse above Crypt Passage to Dome alternative involving two pitches into the same chamber."

Click to expand...

We went back last night to take a look, and indeed once down the first pitch (~12 m) the rift doubles back through virtually 360 degrees, to take you to Dome Pitch. It took me back to the old days, when I were a lad, rigging off naturals, long before these namby-pamby niminy-piminy bolt things started  to sprout from the rock all over the place. 

Go down Hangmans if you want all naturel.