Training for the Gouffre Berger (the deepest cave in the world at −1,122 metres, for a decade, until surpassed by the PSM)
I drove chipper young Mike W to Autrans. About half way across France, apropos of nothing at all and after a brief lull in conversation (akin to one of those awkward solemn pauses signifying the birth, somewhere in the world, of another policeman), Mike said in a glib and almost instantly forgettable way...
"
I hope the SRT I've done is going to be OK for the Berger".
Continuing driving for several minutes enjoying the distant panorama and whizzing countryside my mind glitched and jibbed a bit, like one of those moments when you have a waking jump after being interrupted from a delightful daydream. I couldn't quite work out what had caused this; perhaps an insufficient number of cups of coffee that morning, or maybe a bewildering but nonetheless vital road sign which I couldn't translate had my cerebral cogs whirling. Then it came hauntingly back to me. In big large flashing neon. The sentence Mike just innocently said had a mental exclamation mark next to it in my head...
"
I hope the SRT I've done is going to be OK for the Berger"!
I instantly perked up, sat bolt upright in my comfy seat, focussed on the road ahead and said in a please-don't-think-I'm-being-nosey-kind-of-way "
Mike, what exactly do you mean by the words 'I hope the SRT I've done is going to be OK for the Berger"?
A pause. It was too long a pause. It became almost uncomfortable.
I added a further question to the awkward impasse, "
How much SRT have you actually ever done?".
"
Not much", came the meek, but chummily perky, response.
"
How much is 'not much', Mike?"
"
I've been to Hunters Hole...", said Mike, a bit more reservedly, but ending by adding in an authoritative and triumphant way, "...
Twice!!".
Peace and quiet returned to the car. Not so much peace and quiet but certainly quiet. A lot of quiet. A huge number of thoughts arose, one imagining the newspaper headline "Instructor drives student to cave of death", and many of which were preceded with commonplace Anglo Saxon expressions but eventually culminated in what seemed to be sage advice and all I could muster without bit of foam flecking my lip.... "
When we get to the campsite don't tell anyone what you've just told me".
More quiet.
After a further five miles, to make myself feel better about the prospects ahead, I breezily said "
...Tell you what; you and me can do some SRT refresher training when we get to the cave".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5OynGOxVZI
Turned out that Mike was a natural at ropeymonkeyness and after a little bit of supervision, mostly to check he really was
way too intelligent to make any safety critical oversights, he was fully functioning funstermungering on a little late afternoon proving trip down to and back from the Starless River. Further deeper trips followed.
The Gouffre Berger is a great training venue for trips to itself, it would appear.
NB Ideally a programme of significant coaching and/or fitness training ought to be undertaken before attempting caves of this nature - it's not big and it's not clever to visit big and clever caves without being as well prepared as you can become.