The fissure gains a roof and morphs into a walking-sized meandering stream passage, passing an alternative dry entrance at the first corner.

[4] 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.

[5][6] The Long Kin East system is a solutional cave formed in Visean Great Scar limestone from the Mississippian Series of the Carboniferous period.

[8][9] The entrance passage is a meandering vadose canyon which descends gradually following the local southerly dip before reaching the main shaft.

[8][9] Exploration of the phreatic stream passage at the bottom of the shaft has reached a point which is 11 metres (36 ft) above and about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) distant from the resurgence at Austwick Beck Head in Crummackdale.

[10] 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;".

[11][12] 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".

[14] The hydrological connection between Long Kin East Cave and Austwick Beck Head was established in 1900 using fluorescein by the Yorkshire Geological Society.

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.

[17] 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.