Sorry it is late and out of sequence.
Vercors 22nd August to 30th August 2008
The Scialet du Trisou Friday 21nd August 2008
Cookie (Dave Cooke), Neil Rigiani, Judi Durber, Alan & Will.
Friday morning woke with ice on the tents and a resolve to get some rope practice in before taking to the big rigged caves. This meant finding a cave with a few short pitches & rigging it ourselves. Which of course meant sitting round drinking beer, eating good food, telling stories while looking through the caving guide books. Then more story telling while the tackle was sorted and bagged. So the 11 o?clock start became a late afternoon start.
We had chosen a cave that was on a single track road that wound itself round the side of the mountain. The road had been closed while being resurfaced as it was going to be the alternative route for the Bourne Gorge while that was closed. So the debate was would it be open, how far down would we get before being stopped. We figured they would probably not be working overnight and it had to open Monday morning so we thought we should get through. We all pilled into Cookies truck and where probably the first vehicle along the road. The surface was lovely and new but they had hardly widened it only filling in the edges with hardcore that although rolled looked a tad soft and could easily slip down the side of the mountain.
We parked up and then the hunt was on for the entrance. There where some wonderful sink holes down through the woods but of course the entrance was where we had stated looking 20 minutes before.
Cookie, followed by Neil did the rigging. The first traverse was more of a hand line down the entrance slope from a tree. Then a scramble climb before going across to the first pitch. A lovely straight 18 meter pitch but a bit close to the side in places, the rock being scalloped and ridged like a waterfall. Next we went down into a lovely meander, quite steep in places. The edges were sharp and the corners almost doubling back on themselves getting tighter and wrigglier. As time was getting on Alan & Will decided to go back so there wasn?t a wait on the way out. Cookie & Neil came to the head of the next pitch which was a bit exposed. Neil investigated down under a bit while Cookie traverse round a corner over the top before jamming himself in and deciding which of the spits to use from the wide variety shot into the rock, then when he chose one it wouldn?t work. They were everywhere even where it was completely unnecessary to have one (or several.) This was the longest pitch at 21 meters down to a ledge before the last 6 meters.
Cookie Neil & I got to the bottom wiggled through a slot before dropping down into a small stream-way. Upstream soon got very narrow but down opened out into a huge tall passageway. A great cascade of flow stone down one side before you clambered through to another great chamber where the side was black rock. We turned back, Cookie going up first showing me how smooth prusiking can be done. I followed adjusting and fine tuning my kit on the way.
I will get a new chest harness, I will get a new chest harness ?
Cookie was on the last pitch when we heard loud bangs. The chamber did echo but I thought Alan & Will must be banging the bags around a bit to make that much noise. As Cookie got near the top though he suddenly heard rushing sounds, water, and as he discovered tree debris shot all over him and showered down on me. What was a dry pitch suddenly turned into a waterfall. After the initial rush not to much thank goodness. I got up ok and went on out while Neil de-rigged.
Outside was a deluge and we quickly got soaked changing. The loud bangs hadn?t been the bags but lightening almost overhead. With a very steamed up car, some rocks already over the road and running with water it made for an interesting journey home. It had been a fine trip, nice friendly cave & good bit of SRT practice.
The Gournier Sunday 23rd August 2008
Biff (John Biffin), Young Biff (George Biffin aged 4), Cookie, Neil, Judi, Andy Sparrow, Rachael Pane, Meg & Mark Whyte.
The Gournier is at the bottom of the Bourne Gorge (Gorges de la Bourne) next to the Chornache show cave (
http://www.grottes-de-choranche.com/en/choranche/index.html).
Cookie, Neil & I had driven down the gorge 2 days earlier by Ian to visit THE ultimate cave supplies shop, Expe. An empty warehouse with a counter where you have to look at a catalogue and ask for an item before you can stroke, try, purr, argue with all the other cavers there over its merit before buying and then decamping to the town for a relaxed coffee & beer watching the locals jumping into the river below us.
On the Saturday we descended half way down the gorge to see the spectacle of people whizzing across the valley on the world record longest SRT traverse: The "Tyrolienne Pierrot Rias" (TPR) of 1150m long and 250m gradient. Speeds of 70 kph were reached and I was rather concerned as to how they were going to stop. I need not have worried as they came to a gentle halt some way before the end and had to be pulled in to get off. Cookie, Neil & I had climbed up the side of the cliff, teetering along ledges, climbing vines to gain height beating off the eagles circling round. (We sweated up a nice wooded path stopping occasionally to admire the view.)
We were rewarded with the excitement of the people waiting, one guy used gaffer tape to hold a dodgy helmet on his head, and another taped a camera to his helmet. There weren?t many females doing it. The places had been booked previously but a Russian waited all afternoon and was rewarded with the last place of the day. Yards & yards of rope lay coiled on the floor before it threaded back & forth through, we were told a Petzle stop and several pulleys and I am sure it was finally all just hooked onto a tree. Looking at the rope I lined up the camera to take a photo only to have it dip out of view as the person started across the valley, whooping and disappearing to a tiny dot.
http://www.explos.org/blog/2008/09/tyrolienne-pierrot-rias.html
The road down the Bourne Gorge was due to be closed for maintenance (it was slipping into the valley) on the Monday which would mean a very tortuous detour, so Sunday we decided to do the cave instead of trying and get a place on the Tyrolienne.
So several cars drew up in the car park of the Chornache. We spotted other cavers straight away and from the accent found a friendly pair from Yorkshire. A boat is needed for this trip which they didn?t have so we agreed to share. Being midday it was baking hot and not wanting to strip off and frighten the tourists we carried boat, ropes, wet-suites to the cave entrance only to discover a gaggle of tourists watching several parties of cavers change and cross the lake on a flotilla of boats I?m sure we were the most efficient crossing.
From the climb out of the ?dingy? you where straight onto a 2 meter climb where there was a couple of rungs and a hand line to a shelf that led to a traverse round the edge of the lake. Half way across the traverse Biff & Biff junior sat waiting for the ?big uns? to teeter along the slack line, round a lovely curtain and then up a slippery slope mumbling nervously. So a great opportunity for a sea shanty, well a little ditty about a pirate ship to try and encourage everyone along. My singing was so bad Biff junior decided to go back so we left them and swung up into the first great chamber. I was so engrossed in the size of the place it took a while to realise that I was in the middle of Gower Pools. One after the other several meters across. I was treading all round the edge,
ahhgg, no. I stopped suddenly looking for the tape. Where was I supposed to tread? Where was the bit that had been sacrificed to save the rest? Nothing, not a sign. There was no obvious damage either. (I didn?t inspect too close) The edges taking our weight and I was told to keep tramping on. There was so many, you had no choice but keep going round the edges and then we were on into the next section and into the next. Huge, huge caverns, bolder floors, some small then great big hunks that took some climbing dodging the holes in-between. Then suddenly a chamber full of Stalagmites. Not your slim columns or dumpy forms choosing to look like male anatomy but fantastic great big majestic columns, one after the other, glistening white, reaching high over our heads. Then walls of calcite running from floor to ceiling.
On we tromped and tromped and tromped. Then, a huge hunk of rock had fallen from the ceiling (well all the boulders had at one time or another) but this one was different, several tongs of calcite had run down the rock to form columns over 2 meters long. When the rock had broken off it had rolled so the columns where now horizontal, nose height. Was this the origin of a photo I had seen often displayed in one of the huts?
Photo, photo. Andy got out the camera but as with the stalls they are so huge we did not have enough light to illuminate it all in one go as a tabloid. So a movie had to be made with direction from Andy, start at my feet, the lights were ran first up me then over the stall. Amazing. On again, through a bolder ruckle, down through holes and eventually into the stream way.
Small, very similar to Upper Long Churn we moved up stream. We immediately met another group trying to straddle the stream & keep their feet dry, but this is why we were wearing the wet suites. After sweating through all the caverns to get there we could finally cool down. Not a lot of water to start with but it soon got deeper & wider, one pool falling into another, meandering bends and deep, cavities. The passages where beautiful, pristine with crystal clear water that changed from a milky to royal blue. No mud, no leaf debris, but with quite a strong current, cold and unknown depth in places. The passage then widened with steep sides with a waterfall dropping into the pool. All along the wall to the top of the fall large steel staples had been inserted like on a via ferrata. The stretch between some was a tad large (I think I only ever saw tall long legged Frenchmen caving) and Meg slipped but was saved by her cows tails. After recovering she decided she had gone far enough & would wait for our return. On we went the next obstacle was a bigger traverse up a wall and round over the next fall. More stream way, more swimming, climbing and then a traverse with just a hand line over an exposed slippery slope. I called it a day at this point while Rachael, Andy, Mark, Neil & Cookie went on.
The 2 Yorkshire lads where met returning at this point & as they would be out first agreed to collect Meg and go out with her. The party was not long before they all returned. The end had been not far up the passage after more climbing to a final traverse where they had turned back. So it was back the way we had come. A bit of a search to agree the point we left the stream (lots of cairns about to show you the way) and lots of walking back to the lake. The traverse round the lake was empty that was until a lone French man came, looked at the ropes, took all the knots out of the hand line & grumbled at me for not having the correct kit. Apparently they have long slack lines so that they can abseil down using ?stops?. When he got to the lake he just jumped in swam round the edge and stomped off to the car park. I rowed majestically back across the lake. It was a glorious evening with the blue sky turning pink as the last rays of sun set as we drove back up the gorge. Fantastic.
Tricky Soof to St Glass (Fond Du Trou Qui Souffle to Les Saints De Glace) (TQS)
Biff, Cookie, Neil, Judi, Pete Martin, Mark Whyte
Wednesday 27th August 2008
A couple of days before Menacer had regaled her tales of shooting through this cave in 5 hrs and that included going down a 50m pitch they weren?t supposed to do so had to come back up again !! So I was not going to go down there in a hurry, then we bumped into Cookie & Biff who had just booked the trip so Neil, Pete & I decided to try & get in on the same day.
Wednesday morning dawned with the usual mist clearing to a glorious warm sunny morning. We made sure we had plenty of sandwiches with us as unlike Andy & Rachael who were getting ready for THE BERGER, we didn?t go for the big cooked breakfast just several mugs of tea. (Big mistake on both parts)
TQS was within walking distance of the camp site so we drove to the entrance. Mark by now had also decided to join us so the party of 6 arrived to see a group before us disappearing down the gap in the tarmac where there is a short railing separating cars from the hole which is on a very sharp bend and was discovered when they where repairing the road.
We bimbled on in, the entrance reminding me of GB entrance, & very quickly coming to our first pitch which was not long & easy enough for the first go at getting on & off ropes. Another bimble and then we found a few more ropes. Now I would like to introduce you to our cave guide handed out to everyone who books the trips at the congress. It is in English at least most of the words are but they have not always put them in the normal order to make a sentence. So we had
?continues by a gallery slightly declive and drained by a small torrent?. Small & torrent I don?t think should go together but as I hardly saw any stream-way in this system I did wonder if we were in the right place. More traversing and some bold steps over deep gaps, we then found another rope or at least Biff, Pete & Neil had and gone down. Was this the 50m pitch not to go down. So back to the description,
? This gallery arrives on a very beautiful pit (30m) where is waterfalling the torrent? or
?follow the banister to avoid the gutter? or
?follow the racking ... on the right ... where the wind is real?. It was windy, but if you followed the track on the right you came to the top of the same pitch.
The 3 boys by this time had all prusiked back up and we had been joined by a group of French cavers also coming up & an English contingent going down who all agreed that this was the correct rope so off down we all went ... again, no torrent to be seen.
So next was ?
take a meandric look?, ok so we meandered to the next set of ropes that were a lot more interesting, they had rigged the pitches with pairs of rope. I went down with only a deviation and Neil was on the other rope with a re-belay. A short traverse, they like slack ropes, then Neil & I race to the bottom of the next pitch before another with a deviation. Mark traversed down to the deviation but couldn?t quite reach it as he had gone round the wrong side of the hole and had to climb back up to start from the top.
By now my lovely new stop was black as the ropes oozed gunk as you went down them. We had also gained a Frenchman, Giles (although all through the trip I thought we had gained some-one called Jill). At six foot tall he had asked to join us as there was a squeeze further on and his fellow cavers could not get through or they were going too fast for him. Neil was not quite sure as he can?t speak French & Giles couldn?t speak English. Brill at least we have some-one who knows the way.
We stopped somewhere for a chocolate stop and the boys ALL WENT FOR A PEE.
Hang on a minute that?s not fare, I am wrapped up like some bondage babe in a bad cave movie, full kit including chest harness and belay belt. It was going to take me some time to get out of it and if I do have to pee in a cave I want it to be in running water. One cavern ran into the next with no formations that I can remember but several large bolder floors. We stopped several times to make sure we were together. Giles had a problem with his light, a ?stinky? throwing out a feeble yellow flicker. Neil pulled out one of his gadgets and pipes where cut, clips where screwed, containers banged, holes blown ... and it still didn?t work that well. Another group of Frenchmen stomped on through. We thought we had lost Giles to that group as we were travelling rather slowly, but when we moved on again there he was waiting in the darkness in a chamber where a small water fall created a pool,
oh for a pee, but everyone crowded round while Giles used it to clean out his container and pipes again. He carried a huge ruc-sack dedicated to the working of the stinky, but still no significant light.
We then entered a crawl which like all crawls starts with a puddle just to get you nicely damp, this led into a muddy tunnel low enough to ensure you had to belly crawled through, coating you and kit in thick mud. On & on over a sometimes smooth calcite floor, mainly low enough to stop you being on all fours, I was starting to think it could beat DYO?s ?Long Crawl? when we all suddenly stopped. Lying flat out wondering what was going on in front I realised we were at the squeeze. Biff, Giles & Neil seemed to skip through with no problems so I thought it would be a doddle. Now when people talk of a squeeze you always have previous squeezes in mind. A cave this size I was expecting something like the ?Cheese Press? in Long Churn not ?Tim?s Tunnel? in Pridhamsleigh. Pete who was in front of me knew he was not going to get through with all his kit on so shuffle back, harness off, try again. No, so with me tugging, off comes over-suite and even with his furry rucking up over his bum got through. I was well impressed. So my turn AND I GOT STUCK. It was my harness over my hips, couldn?t be me, I haven?t got a big bum! (wish I had had a pee though) So taking Pete?s example, slowly, slowly, left foot push an inch at a time I was through. Mark & Cookie seemed to have no problems. So what next
?a small ventilated attic window gives access to ... wide, areal slippery and intersected by pits?. Well they weren?t wrong. Long slack traverse lines,
?must remember to stay below them?, ?gosh I need to pee?. High over a meandering passage they went on and on and on,
I need to pee. No stream & no ledges until it came to a point where I could not concentrate any longer. I think we were enough ahead of the following group to pull this off but at that point I didn?t really care. I had to pee. So Neil performed the ultimate task of unbuckling, de-robing and hanging onto me while I straddled the traverse and peeeeed. Bliss oh bliss. I could enjoy the trip so much better. (Someone told me after the ?heshee? is the thing to carry, so lookout boys, a novice aimer is about!).
see below I have exceeded the number of words
