There’s more to Lost Johns

John, Will, Ami & Ray

A typical evening Lost Johns trip usually involves some combination of routes down the upper series (Dome-Centipede or Monastery-Dome), but there’s so much more to the system if you venture below Dome Junction or Sink Chamber. The aim of this trip was to delve deeper. The original plan had been for a Boxhead – Death’s Head through trip, but the recent wet weather gave some cause for concern about water levels in Long Pool. So we decided to do an in and out trip via Lost Johns, but still get to see some of the master cave and Lyle Cavern.

On arrival at the lay-by up on Leck Fell, there was another party of 2 already there. The usual “Where are you going?” discussion elicited that they were also headed for Lost Johns. Thankfully they were heading to Dome, while we were planning on Centipede. From Dome Junction, however, they were planning to head deeper, which could have caused issues. How would we handle 2 independent parties on Battleaxe, for instance. I was pretty confident that we would be faster, so decided that was their problem.

We went underground at 11:00 and made swift progress down the pitches, arriving at the bottom of the last pitch at 12:10. We had budgeted for 5 hours underground, so had plenty of time to explore. At Groundsheet Junction we headed upstream, arriving before too long at the handline climb up into the bottom of Lyle Cavern. Now, to get into Lyle Cavern you leave this handline after a few feet, but Will and Ami (who were leading the way) carried on up into a crawl. Being a bit more experienced (or knackered), John and I left them to it. They came back with tales of wonderful decorations, so maybe it’s worth a look next time.

Reunited again, we all climbed up into Lyle Cavern. As we still had a bit of time, Will set off up the fixed ropes, followed by Ami and then me. John once again showed his greater experience by waiting at the bottom as we weren’t planning to be long. By the time I reached the top, Will had done some exploring and was ready to set off back down the fixed ropes. Ami was thrutching through some damp crawl below Helectite Rift, eventually climbing up into the rift beyond the miserable crawl. I chose to take the more traditional route of climbing straight up into Helectite Rift, without any need for crawling at all.

Alas, time was getting on by now, so Ami and I turned back (via our chosen routes) and headed down the fixed ropes to meet up with the others again and begin the long upward journey back to the sun. A brief stop for fun-sized Mars bars (supplied by Ami) at Groundsheet Junction was very welcome. The upward journey was again very efficient, albeit a bit slower thanks to gravity. On the way out, we bumped into the other party of 2 at Dome Junction, still on their way in! I guess we didn’t need to worry about double rigging then.

We emerged to glorious sunshine at 15:45, 15 mins ahead of schedule, feeling very satisfied indeed. Even though we saw quite a bit of the system, there’s still plenty more to go back for. We didn’t even head downstream in the master cave. And think of all those great through-trips we could do. I hope we’ll be back before long!

Photos by Will.