Christine Grosart 06/05/2024 Christine Grosart 06/05/2024

The French Connection

Christine on her way out of Cregols. Image: Jo Croimins

The Lot region of France, adjoining the possibly better known department Dordogne, is a mecca for cave divers.

I first visited in 2006 as a trainee cave diver and in my sidemounted 12 litre cylinders, had a blast visiting all the ‘classic’ sites such as the Emergence de Ressel, St Georges, Cabouy, Fontaine de Truffe, Source Landenouse as well as the lesser visited sites such as Emergence de Cregols.

The following year I supported Rick Stanton and John Volanthen in dragging all their gear to sump 5 in the Truffe while they pushed the end at sump 12. Subsequent trips were in a similar vein, a mixture of tourist diving, training and exploration. And of course, enjoying the wine, food and scenery the region had to offer, in addition to excellent canoeing on the rivers Celé, Lot and Dordogne.

Going on holiday to the Lot with the Cave Diving Group always leads to adventures and we always took our ropes ladders and dry caving gear to have a ‘day off’ from diving to visit the other caving systems in the region.

Despite visiting the region regularly on and off for almost 20 years, it had never once occurred to me to ride a bike there.

Now, with my newfound passion of cycling and triathlon, I was very excited about visiting such a stunning region and being able to combine my two sports on the same trip.

I was super keen to kick off with a loop of the two rivers that run through the region, the Lot and the Dordogne. Peppered with classic cave diving sites I loosely named the route ‘cave divers loop’ and the 100km mostly flat ride, took in some stunning scenery.

The first thing I noticed was that, by being on a bike, I was obviously going much slower than a car and could notice the classic French buildings nestled in the rock faces, the wildlife and the beautiful summer river ambience that you just don’t notice when you are driving to the dive site, your mind on the job ahead.

I started in Marcilhac-sur-Celé which boasts probably the most famous cave diving site in Southern France, Emergence de Ressel. That would come at the end though, as I set of in the opposite direction to do the route anti-clockwise. I passed through beautiful gorges, passed old water mills and stunning villages. I stopped halfway in Cajarc, hoping that being a Sunday lunchtime something would be open for some proper food. There were a couple of restaurants that claimed to be fully booked and I finally managed to get some nice pastries and a cold cola from the patisserie. I was never really sure if the restaurants were booked or if they just didn’t like English cyclists. I had noted a rather less than friendly tone in France since the Brexit debacle. I’m still not sure what that whole thing was meant to achieve. All it has done is made it harder to take French wine back home.

Not far from Cregols I was somewhat surprised to see the Canyon-Sram ladies pro team bus parked up. I got a bit bedevilled on directions at the roundabout and was very relieved to set off without having any clip-in fails in front of the pro peloton!

La Piscalerie. A nice (but out of bounds) dive worth doing just once.

I set off again in the glorious sunshine and it was getting rather hot as I tackled the only climb in the route. I started to flag a bit over the last 10km and was glad to see the familiar roadside cliffs which indicated the Ressel on my left. It was the first time I had seen the new car park which had been built to accommodate the ever-growing cave diving community.

Back in 2006 you would be lucky to see another car perched on the side of the road near the cave. And if you did, there was a good chance you knew the diver or had heard of them. You would undoubtably end up in a bar with them later.

Now, the car park had been built to get cave divers off the road as the line-up of multiple cars and vans was getting more and more dangerous and unfair to locals. I stopped to take a look. It was absolutely rammed.

I arrived back in Marcilhac-sur-Celé disappointed that the ice cream shop was closed, being a Sunday afternoon.

Feeling the effects of a 100km ride in the heat, I went for a lay down by the river and ate a banana. It was tranquil, apart from the toad chorus that echoed around the Celé and the sound of water rushing down the wier.

I took a day off and fettled my diving gear, thinking about where I’d like to go.

Diving solo isn’t very sociable but I’ve never really had an issue with it. I had got used to diving with others as it was kind of drummed into me over the last 12 years. But I was always capable of diving alone, having been brought up in UK caves where diving as a team wasn’t always possible. I found it much safer than diving with a poorly trained buddy. Poorly trained being the key words. A well trained buddy is a huge asset.

I needed some gas so drove to Gramat to get some fills from Olivair. Olivier set up the gas station just along the road from where we always used to get gas from Frenchman, Andre Grimal. I missed the spontaneous parties and BBQs we would get tangled up in waiting for gas, and the excitement of meeting and befriending other occasional cave divers you might come across at the same time. Andre would test out his homebrew Eau-de-vie on us and it was quite deadly.

I arrived but the gates were locked. He was unlikely to be gone long, so I waited. Then another car pulled up. A Belgian cave diver called Jo was also waiting for gas and we got chatting. He was here with his girlfriend but she didn’t dive, so he was also facing diving alone. It didn’t take long before we were planning dives together and I was grateful of the company.

Over the next week we had some very cool adventures, though mainly in places I had been before. I added some interest by trying to take photos and showing Jo around places he had never been, such as the Cregols. I was amazed to see other divers in there. In years gone by it was the place where you were guaranteed to be alone.

WhatsApp Image 2023-06-07 at 18.15.11.JPEG

We did some touristing and photo dives in Ressel and Truffe and a disastrous fail at trying to find Combe Negre. But I was itching to get back onto my bike and try my hand at an ascent of Rocamadour. It was steep at the bottom but such an iconic climb which still had the Tour de France scrawlings all over it and inside the tunnel. I was utterly delighted to manage a clean ascent with no stopping, in the warm evening sunshine.

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It had always been my plan to visit friends who lived in the south of France and I chose the middle weekend to make a foray, some four hours south, to the Herault region. My first stop of course was to Jean Tarrit in Larzac. Jean has been a friend for many years and he offered me his annexe in his chic and rustic stone house up on top of the Larzac plateau. Of course, I was invited to visit one of his local caves with his friend Philippe who I had done some surveying with several years ago. It was another surveying trip and it was nice to back on rope again. At least, it was until we met the 3rd pitch which was slathered in thick, gloopy mud which took several episodes of pressure washing to remove.

All I could hear from the 3rd pitch was lots of squelching and protests in English that it was ‘absolutely ‘orrible!!”

I decided of course, once caving was done, to go for a bike ride. I had the whole of the Herault gorge at my disposal, including the hairpin climb with stunning views that always offered the gateway to the region. The day began in glorious sunshine as I parked up at St Maurice de Navacelles. I told Jean not to worry about me and I would be fine. So he didn’t. As I climbed the really quite steep ascent above the Herault gorge the clouds started to gather and as I entered the commune de Rogues, I could hear big rolls of thunder in the hills. I got a move on but before long, I was faced with a steep, never ending descent on wet roads covered in slippery leaves and branches.

Do. Not. Crash.

The wind picked up and the heavens opened, accompanied by the intimidating claps of thunder and terrifying lightening, with a deafening crash only a nano second later which went right through me. Despite being quite warm, hypothermia was still a possibility if I stopped, now that I was totally drenched. My gilet was as much use as a chocolate fire guard. I sheltered under a tree which only threatened to fall on me, so I made haste to the next village, hiding under a shop canopy. The place was deserted. Sheets of rain and lightening carried on relentlessly and water poured in rivers down my face, my front, my back and I the visibility was reduced to a number of metres.

I made it to Gournies. I knew there was a cafe there as the rain started to ease off and steam rose from the roads and the river Herault.

I pulled up and asked if they were serving food. Perhaps a sandwich?

Non.

Coffee?

The grumpy guy nodded and in some kind of sympathy, offered me a paper napkin to dry my face. He then delivered the smallest expresso coffee I have ever seen in my life. Cheers dude.

I made it back up the climb to Saint Maurice, which was a lot easier than I imagined and drove back to jean’s place, insisting on taking him out for pizza which turned into yet another epic.

I had to get fuel for my van first, but by the time we found a parking spot and the pizza place, Jean pointed out that we might have to fill up my car again!

I almost crashed the thing laughing!

Next stop was Nimes, a couple of hours further south, to catch up with my old boss Craig Frederick. I hadn’t been to Nimes for about 20 years since my first caving trip to the Herault. It is a fabulous city and I’d really love to dive the Fontaine de Nimes resurgence one day, which currently is only accessible by the French Pompiers for training.

My final ride was a big circuit, taking in Rocamadour and out to Souillac. I was quite out on a limb but it was a cracking day and I think I found the best cycling cafe on the planet! On my way home, thanks to Komoot, I found a cracking flat ride, mostly traffic free, along the river Loire.

The beauty of travelling alone is being able to what you want, when you want and not being beholden to someone else’s plans or commitments. I ate nice food, had great bike rides, did some cave diving, made new friends and reconnected with old ones.

Life is good and I wouldn’t swap it for anything right now.

Christine Grosart 08/12/2023 Christine Grosart 08/12/2023

"...a nice easy flop in a resurgence..." by Richard Walker

Yesterday we went on a nice easy resurgence flop. The cave entrance is no more than 100m from the road. How hard could it be?

Trouble is, that 100m is about 20m horizontal, and 97m vertical. The cave was Gourneyras, in the Viz gorge. 20 minutes down a dirt track next to some breathtaking drop-offs where your front wheels are spitting stones off the side into oblivion, you come to a tree. Actually hundreds of trees. One of them marks the path down to the cave.

You just have to know which tree. And we sort of did, and sort of didn't. The giveaway was the steel cable-run that had been set up to transport gear down to the pool. But we were too clever to look for that. An hour later we gave up the hunting and went down the right path for a quick look. The cave was right there where we left it in 2012.

*Christine decompresses in the Gourneyras*

There was only 2 of us, so we had travelled light. One twinset, one rebreather, 4 stages, drysuits, undersuits and some other bags of stuff. Christine went down the track and started setting up the hand-lines that we use to stop ourselves plummeting into the oblivion. This track has just about every type of terrain you can imagine.

It starts with a steep gravel path, with some 2ft high rock steps to negotiate. Then it changes direction and traverses across the hill on a scree slope, which slips and slides under your feet. Then it goes into a gentle forest path, and you think that it isn't so bad. It's of course lulling you into a false sense of security. Next is a combination of steep mud path, brambles, eye level branches, ankle level knotweed, and some unstable pebbles. Then you break out into the sunshine again at the level of the river, and feel happy that your 100m decent is over and it must now get easier.

Now the fear starts. There is a field of unstable, slippery, weed covered boulders, just right to break an ankle. You slither and slide over these and finally arrive at the pool. Which is truly delightful. It's sparkly blue, the sunshine lights it up and the entrance to the cave beckons they eye from a depth of 6m.

We chained the gear down the hill, 10m steps at a time, which was significantly easier we thought, than running up and down the hill 8 times. We got all the gear down to the pool in about 90 minutes, and were pleased with ourselves.

Gear assembled, camera checked and we were off. The 32C air temperature was oppressive, and it was great to get into the 13C water. We hung about on the surface for a few minutes just to relax and get that hot-and-bothered feeling gone, and then began our dive. The entrance is obvious at a depth of about 6m, and we dropped our decompression cylinders at 6m, and swam into the cave. It starts with a 45 degree, stepped drop into the cave. Lots of boulders and rocks are all around, and you soon come to the 21m dropoff, convenient for leaving the second decompression cylinders.

Now the cave gets interesting. There's a large circular room as you descend, almost impossible to see from one side to the other. The walls are white, but the place sucks up light. If you look back now, from a depth of about 40m, you see the blue entrance above you. More about that later. Now, you arrive on a pebble floor, and the passage turns sharply to the left, under a huge overhang.

You're now at about 50m depth, and in a passage like a railway tunnel. Bigger actually. It's probably 30m wide and 20m high. There are beautiful scalloped formations of the floor, sharp knives of rock 10m across on the floor, and air-clear visibility. Again, it's hard to see across the tunnel, and I had travel all over the cave tunnel to see it, and still didn't see it all! After about 10-15 minutes, it was time to turn, and I turned on the camera, lit the lights and started to shoot some stills. Light was getting sucked up and to get any sort of perspective was difficult. The thought of some new 4000 Lumen lights has started to hit my radar. Hope the bank manager isn't reading this...

I shot some half decent pictures of Christine, and by 30 minutes we were back at the corner to start heading back up the slope. Here is where you get your first real view of the entrance. 50m deep, looking uphill to a turquoise blue window into the fresh air. You can see the green trees around the pool, it's an amazing sight.

We worked our way up the slope, taking pictures, swapping cameras, managing the decompression for the next hour - way more time than we need, but it's a beautiful place, we had the gas, a camera and no pressing engagements that evening. After a 90 minute dive, we surfaced to some French ramblers, who informed us that they also dived there, and had we seen the view from 30m of the surface pool. They didn't offer to help us carry our gear back though, for some reason.

We got out of our gear, relaxed for half an hour and started the long haul back to the road. Only 100m away, most of it vertical, back through the ankle breakers, up the forest mud path, across the scree slope and up the stone steps. PFO test formally passed.

As the light faded, we realised we needed to make tracks if we wanted to eat that night. We headed to Laroque as they have a row of tourist trap restaurants. Takeaway pizza. But it was past 9pm when we got there. "Fini" came the reply from the chef.

No discussion. We had spied a caravan that had "pizza" written on the side, a mile back down the road, so we headed back there, and to our delight, he cooked us 3, Yes 3, pizzas in about 20 minutes flat. Joy of Joy, he also sold us 2 Pelforth Blondes.

Life is good on a day like that!

Christine Grosart 08/12/2023 Christine Grosart 08/12/2023

Not every donut has a hole in the middle...

We had long had an invitation from the French caving club to dive a new sump which was very close to the Foux de la Vis. The group, as ever, helped carry our kit in the heat and set about the entrance of the dry cave with explosives to make passing the gear a little easier.

We had a little information on the sump and in our usual plan of attack, added a little helium to our larger bottles and took some oxygen along too, so that we had all angles covered. In exploration, you never know what the cave will do – if it will go deeper, if it will surface, if it will close down or open up in to caverns measureless to man.

We knew that someone had been in there before but had very little information on how it ended.

We lowered the cylinders through a boulder choke and kitted up in a narrow rift.

I set off surveying the existing line in very poor, milky visibility (barely 2 metres) and Rich went ahead to try and find the way on.

We came across all sorts of different lines, one of which had broken and was heading back towards the entrance. We spent some time cleaning this up and very shortly came to the end of the line. It was only at a depth of 21m and some 36 metres surveyed distance.

We had a good poke about in rifts below and above but they were too tight and definitely not worth pursuing. I stuffed Rich into one with the line reel and he laid about 8 metres before climbing back towards me, shaking his head.

The team got the gear out in good time, in between eating lunch and drinking red wine, which had clearly been smuggled past their wives that morning in coca cola bottles……

The walk up hill was hot and my ankle didn’t like it, but we were soon at the café in St Maurice de Navacelles drinking cold beers while I entered the survey data and produced a stick map.

Christine Grosart 06/12/2023 Christine Grosart 06/12/2023

D-Day in the Perdreau

I would be lying if I said I wasn't just a bit nervous or under pressure the night before this dive.

Our last attempt was thwarted by my failed attempt to pass the almost vertical rift in zero vizibility, which we now realised was due to a very loose, sloppy polyprop line. We had made attempts to fix it, but ultimately, it needs to come out and a heavy line put in.

We had a quick breakfast and drove over to the parking spot to meet the French from the CLPA, who were keen as ever to help us.

Beautiful hills are the backdrop to our expedition

After a lot of banter and greetings, Jean, Etienne and three others offering surface support, set off to the cave entrance and shifted the gear through the small boulder choke. this consisted of a pair of 12s, a pair of 15s, two deco bottles of oxygen, and 4 7litre bottles for Jarvist and Tim. plus all sundry bits and bobs you need for diving, like masks, fins and regs etc.

We embarked on a mammoth lowering session which involved pulley cars and 'staged' people but it worked fantastically and all the gear was at the bottom of the pitch in not much more than an hour from leaving the surface.

Rich and I dived to the airbell and Jarvist and Tim did an excellent job of helping us unkit and carefully pulling our big bottles up the slope, to get them ready for re-kitting in sump 2.

I got into the water first and with a little help, managed to kit back up again in the narrow rift and float around a bit, trying to keep warm whilst Rich went through the same process. We were handed our deco bottles and had agreed to get them to the other side of the 'annoying flop'. Sump 2 is a very short dive to another airbell which is passable by belly flopping over a narrow rock bridge which gets in the way. We passed our deco bottles over this and I found a good place at 6m to drop them, quite close to airspace.

We set off with the intention of picking up my line reel from where Oz and Joe had left it last year. The cave appeared to be going deeper, but on recent inspection, it may stay at -30m for a while at least.

We set off along the rift and the viz had cleared from our last dive a little, but it was not perfect despite being given 2 days to settle.

We continued for a while and were both very surprised to meet an upwards line into airspace. Somehow we had overshot the junction which takes us to the 'new' line. Confused, we went back on ourselves and realised that, in our efforts to avoid the appalling floating polyprop line which had taken off into the roof of the rift, we had swum past the clothes pegs and other general tatt. Even more surprising was that the floating line had hidden itself so far up into the roof, it was quite an effort to pull it down and put it back into the downwards rift which was looking empty.

We made several attempts to fix it but ultimately, polyprop sucks and it will be coming out next time.

We continued on the correct path, having wasted a few minutes.

*Original survey which we extended quite a lot*

*Geologists! Apparently it would be good if we were to head south west and not north if at all possible!!*

We very soon came across the 'new junction' and set off along Oz and Joe's line. I surveyed the last leg whilst Rich untied the line reel that had sat quiet for a year and once I had underlined the numbers in my wetnotes, Rich turned to me, reel at the ready and smiled an 'Ok?' I nodded and we set off along beautiful rift passage, horizontal and about 30m depth, dipping to 34m temporarily. The rock was sharp, pale, sculptured and pretty. the passage was 10m high and 2m wide at the widest part.

Rich made a lovely, tight line with good tie offs and I bimbled along behind, counting knots, recording the depth and the compass bearing. It was heading north and all I could think of was that poor geologist who was desperate for the cave to go in the opposite direction!

The thing is, it might yet as it has already done one weird corkscrew and we emptied the reel as the rift started to close down - a sign maybe that we should be looking elsewhere now for the continuation.

The Coudouliére is known to connect from dye tracing and that cave corkscrews considerably before settling on a path - and it goes deep. It currently lies at 1650m long and 100m depth.

We looked at the floor nervously waiting for it to engulf us into the depths - but it never did. It just started to pinch up and Rich was getting itchy feet in large 12 and 15 litre bottles. The reel emptied at just the right time.

We dived back in appalling vizibility which was very patchy and were relieved to get back to our deco bottles at 6m with no deco incurred. We had spent 36 minutes in the sump with an average depth of about 20m.

We returned to expectant sherpas and delivered the empty reel and Rich was pre-occupied with the fact that he found his long lost halcyon knife!! We were helped out of the water and out of our cylinders by Jarv and Tim.

I was absolutely freezing - I had somehow managed to be the first in the sump and the last out - so I got an extra 10 minutes of coldness either end! We climbed out and I was generously given something sugary by the resident diabetic. He'll live! (probably).

We had a shivery dive out. I went ahead and Rich followed, exiting the sump at a rate of knots even I found alarming! Clearly he wanted out! We changed into warm fleecy caving undersuits - the posh element changed into fourth element underclothes!

We started packing up and getting gear ready for hauling and we were out of the cave, with our gear back at the car, by 6pm!! Unbelievable! Many thanks to the gang for their help - Elaine, Duncan and Gerick turned up later in the evening to help on the surface as well.

We retired to the campsite to shower and get tarted up for an evening meal in St Jean de Buéges - a timely place - but devoid of champagne :-(

Christine Grosart 06/12/2023 Christine Grosart 06/12/2023

Disappointment and spiders

Nathan couldn’t be around today, but Elaine and Duncan kindly agreed to come and help us shift gear into the Perdreau and their help was very much appreciated. Within a couple of hours, all of our gear was assembled at the sump base and Oz and Joe were getting ready to dive.

*Osama prepares to dive in the Perdreau-Fourmi*

The existing survey of the Perdreau (Siphon Nord – North Sump) gets a bit flaky at sump 2. It is merely reported to be 100m long with a maximum depth of -18m. Oz and Joe were to go in and survey the sump properly with station depth, direction and distance and to survey as much of the new line as they could.

They dived a pair of 7l ‘safety’ bottles through sump 1 to allow divers to start sump 2 on fresh cylinders and also to add a bit of safety for the return journey back through sump 1 incase a diver had a problem or a cylinder go down which was unfixable.

The water is cold and we were in wetsuits, so hanging about in the cold water because of a problem wasn’t really an option here.

Joe and Oz came back with survey data confirming what we had hoped for. The length of sump 2 was indeed 100m and the new line was in addition to that. They managed to survey the first 10m of their new line before gas and cold turned them back.

Meanwhile, Rich and I sat huddled up at sump base, kitted up in wetsuits and wrapped up in suit bags and oversuits to keep warm while we waited over an hour for them to return.

After a moment of worry and ‘what happens next’ planning, Rich and I were about to leave the dive base to go and get warm on the surface and hatch an action plan when their lights could be seen returning back to dive base.

They were so cold they could barely speak – but they had done an awesome job of painstakingly surveying the sump until the new line and a third of that too.

Joe writes:

“We dived through Sump 1 with the aim of re-surveying the existing line in order to provide data on the position of the start of the new line laid in the previous dive. Although the existing line was tagged, this was very loose in places and so each section between belays was measured with a measuring stick along with depth and azimuth information.

The full data will be added to the survey held by Nathan Boinet, however the junction with the new line was measured at 83m from the start of Sump 2 putting the total distance (including the new line) at around 121m. Gas reserves prevented the full survey of all of the new line, however its overall length (from knots and tags) as well as trending direction was noted from the previous dive.

A possible further new passage was briefly investigated on the return through Sump 2 which, from the general direction and type of passage (matching the one in which the divers had laid new line) was thought might bypass the rift to connect with the new passage.”

Then it was mine and Rich’s turn to dive and hopefully extend the line in the new passage. We both had a whiff of trimix in slightly bigger cylinders to aid with the depth and clear thinking in cold water.

We warmed up and kitted up, before setting off through sump 1 without issues. We climbed out of the water and got fairly quickly into sump 2. As we set off, it was obvious that the visibility hadn't settled since our last dives here and Oz and Joe surveying had inadvertently stirred it some more.

The rift half way through the sump is narrow and it's impossible to dive through it, never mind survey it, without touching the walls which expel a powder-like dust which hangs in the water and doesn't move on as there is no flow here.

I dived through what I thought was the rift and met the junction with the airbell. I turned downslope and was now in completely zero visibility. I felt uncomfortable as the line was very, very loose in my hand and there seemed to be miles of it and no belays.

Entrance to the Perdreau-Fourmi - always smaller than we remembered!

I'm used to diving in zero visibility and it never worries me - unless the line is so poor that following it blind becomes dangerous.

At that moment, my hand followed the line into a pile of boulders and seemed to be snaking in amongst them. I couldn't feel any space around me or ahead of me and I knew the line had gone into a line trap, pinched between boulders, possibly metres from the actual way through.

I'm not playing this game! I've been here before, upside down in a boulder choke in zero viz, following slack line, with the clock ticking, only that time I was in Wookey 25 and I was trying to get home....

Not today.

I figured if I couldn't find my way into the cave, there was even less chance of finding my way out. I couldn't see what the line had done to even attempt fixing it. I backed upslope and tried to turn around. I could hear Rich bearing down on me and I felt around for his thumb and pulled it. He got hold of my thumb and pulled it back, indicating that he understood my signal to go home.

We learned a lot from this dive. With little or no flow, the cave does not clear while divers are in there so our only hope from now on is to fix that line and make it followable in the worst visibility, which is the first job for our next attempt at the project in 2012.

Disappointed, but certain that I had made the right decision, we left the cave and just managed to get all the gear out before dusk.

But not without drama!

Oz got half way through the boulder choke and I was close behind when I heard the most blood-curdling scream! Oz was wailing like a girl and I thought he'd either been squashed by a rock or had met a 'vipére' or something.

No, there was a "f***ing tarrantula" in the boulder choke and Oz was face to face with it!

I tried to belittle it with sentiments of "It's only a cave spider" and "It can't be that big"...

Anyway, I got into the choke myself and OMG!!! It was not only huge, but extremely ugly. It's eyes were shining and everything!

We scared it away - which took some doing - this thing wasn't scared of anybody…It didn't scurry or scuttle like normal spiders..this thing crawled. It was disgusting!!

We managed to get back for tea and medals and Rich and I declared that we wanted another day off tomorrow to sit on the beach, swim and sunbathe and do the square root of bugger all!

Christine Grosart 05/12/2023 Christine Grosart 05/12/2023

Abime de Mas Raynal

It occurred to me that I hadn't been to this wonderful cave since about 2003. I was very much looking forward to rigging it this time, rather than being pushed back behind 'some bloke' who always assumed that it was a man's job. Bollocks to that, I say.

*Suntan rigging the Mas raynal super direct route on my 3rd ever SRT trip.*

In 2002, on only my 3rd SRT trip, I went 'over the edge' and did the main hang or 'super direct' route which is 106 clean metres straight off a rusty iron bar in broad daylight on a single rope.

The only interruption is a re-belay some 30m from the crashing river below.

*Abseiling the multi pitch route in the Mas Raynal*

The water heads North West to Source du Sorgues and is typically blue and cold.

The multi-pitch route is friendlier and has some snaggy, slimy green slopes on route to the final hang.

It is partially P-hung and partially requires spits and hangers - so it's advisable to take some hangers.

Ashley, my CDG trainee, wanted to do the main hang on 8mm. He rigged it but only ascended it and used our ropes on the way down.

*The 'window' 3/4 of the way down the mas Raynal indirect route. Image: Christine Grosart*

The cave is like Alum Pot on speed. I think it is a little bigger in dimensions but the main hang is about the same.

Sunlight pours down the main shaft and the chilly gloom of the massive side inlet makes for some great silhouette photos.

*Mas Raynal super direct. Image: Christine Grosart*

Christine Grosart 05/12/2023 Christine Grosart 05/12/2023

Recce Day

Tuesday and D-Day!

It was time to see what Oz and Joe had done with my line reel in the passage Rich and I found last year, and on Oz's advice, to check it really was still going before we threw a big team and trimix at it.

We were very lucky to have Jean Tarrit and Claudine from the CLPA come along to help us underground and they did a great job of getting everything down to the sump's edge in under an hour.

Jarvist and Tim set off into the sump wearing equipment I am too young to have ever seen before....but it seemed to work as they crossed the sump, tidied the line so that it was tight and immaculate and they preserved the visibility well.

Rich and I were to follow about 30 minutes later to give them a chance to rig a ladder to make climbing out of sump 1 much easier and to place a few bolts for ropes and general helpful tatt.

They did a great job and Rich and I kitted up whilst Jean and Claudine went up the ropes to get warm and get lunch.

We crossed the sump easily and had the luxury of walking straight up the ladder fully kitted without breaking sweat and straight down into sump 2.

We dived to the end of the line, surveying last years new passage again as we went and hit 30m depth and my line reel.

The line had been beautifully laid by Oz and Joe and the reel was well tied off at the end.

I shone my cave hunting torch down the ongoing passage and could see large cave ongoing for at least 20m. Satisfied, we cleaned up and left, very much looking forward to the return trip on Friday, to allow the viz to settle after a couple of days.

Christine Grosart 04/12/2023 Christine Grosart 04/12/2023

Caverns Measureless

A good day out…

We met up with Nathan as planned at 10am in the car park closest to the cave. He had brought a friend along to come and help, called Mario. Mario is 25, a new member of the CLPA and was clearly being given some sort of induction involving carrying diving gear half a kilometre in the heat – none of which was his!

Nathan explained that he was the first person to dive the first sump in this cave 15 years ago!

*Passing dive grear through the entrance boulder choke - which is full of spiders…*

We made it to the entrance with a bit of prickly bush bashing and a shin-bashing dry riverbed. Here, we gathered kit by the entrance and sent Nathan ahead to check that the boulder choke was safe (he was concerned that the winter floods might have caused it to move and become unstable). He called up that it was and we followed, ferrying ten 7 litre cylinders, 5 divers wetsuits, equipment and lead (top tip – unless you are all diving at once, share lead!!!!) fins etc and a bolting kit and rope, in case it was needed for the climb out of the water at the end of sump 1.

Rich and I were to dive first and see how far we could get. It is reported that the winter floods rip the line out of these sumps, so we had plenty of line ready to go in and loads of snoopy loops for belays, if required.

*Underwater sump 2 in Perdreau-Fourmi. Image: Christine Grosart*

A line was tied off at dive base and water levels were extremely low. We passed all the equipment down the ropes and Rich and I kitted up in 7mm wetsuits and sidemount gear with a little buoyancy and set off into sump 1. This is 70 metres long and has a maximum depth of 21 metres. The sump was crystal clear with a blue tint as many of these Herault sumps have. Nathan followed five minutes behind with the bolting kit and rope.

The line was there…..but very slack and we took in metres and metres of loose line. It had been laid in zig zags across the passage and every belay except one had come free. We tied up the loose stuff as best we could and surfaced in a large air chamber with the reported climb in front of us. A thick rope was already in place, to our relief and we climbed up the rock face to land on a ledge above. We started down the jagged rock through some holes which led to the start of sump 2. Again the line was in place, but this time was much slacker and was combined with old, French washing line. I tried to tie some of it together in case the visibility was decreased on the way home

We flopped into sump 2 and very soon surfaced in a bit of an airbell with the continuation ahead. Annoyingly, this meant a brief excursion above water, crawling on hands and knees and falling face first into the water on the other side of a rock barrier. Rich dived in front and I couldn’t help but giggle through my regulator as I watched this GUE technical instructor, our lord and master, crawling on his hands and knees then wallowing unceremoniously, helmet and all into the water face first, fins waggling in the air. You had to be there……

Rich dived ahead with the line reel and, after a narrow rift, soon came across the end of the white French dive line. It was tied off to a rock spike pinnacle and the line was wrapped around it several times, almost in a statement. Here we go……

Rich tied my line reel into to line and began to pay out line into the rift ahead. It was a narrow, inclined 45 degree rift and I deployed my extreme-tek backup torch to spot the way on. This long, narrow beam hunted out a widening in the passage lower down whilst Rich searched for tie-offs as he went higher. He indicated to me to tie the line off as he went and two belays later, the viz started to go. Ten metres of progression and I could hear, but not see, Rich scrabbling and scraping ahead and not finding anything to tie the line to, he wriggled back towards me. I fended off waggling fins and coiled up loose line, whilst Rich began to reel back in towards me and gave me a thumbs up and ‘turn around’ signal. I pulled a snoopy off a rock and the rock simply broke in two and fell off the wall. The whole cave is made up of porous, fragile and friable rock which simply won’t tolerate interference.

We dived back on thirds and I kicked on ahead looking for a better way on as I simply didn’t believe that this nasty rift could be it. I got ahead of Rich and deployed my extreme-tek cave spotting torch and carefully examined the wall to my right. I noticed a pile of boulders a bit above me and, using Rich on the line as a lighthouse, swam up and over to have a look. I shone my torch down a large, ongoing railway tunnel of a passage which was ongoing as far as my torch could penetrate – at least 20 metres. There it was. The lost way on was stretching out in front of us. I signalled to Rich and he came over to have a look and we stared at each other in amazement.

Then, Rich tapped his watch and I tied two snoopy loops onto the line and built a rock cairn to signal to Joe and Oz where to tie their line off and we set off home.

We surfaced between sumps 1 & 2 to explain to Nathan what we had found. I stumbled over my French in excitement but he got the idea! Nathan had surfaced in the airbell found by the British team 3 years ago and confirmed it as a ‘cloche’ – closed off airbell.

We all dived back to base and Oz and Joe kitted up. I gave them very clear instructions and directions about what we had found and what to look for. We left the line reel for them in between sumps 1 & 2.

Meanwhile, Rich and I got changed into something more comfortable and began hauling gear with the help of Nathan, back up the pitches. We got everything except Oz and Joe’s kit out of the cave by the time they returned.

They had tied into the line at the cairn and set off down the railway tunnel – which Joe declared was far bigger than any railway tunnel he had seen – and laid 36 metres of new line to a depth of 30m where gas reserves turned them around.

We hauled their gear out and began the soul destroying task of getting kit back to the cars which ended in doing so by torchlight as the moon rose steadily.

The day by far exceeded our expectations and a return trip this week is planned to resurvey sump 2 from scratch, as Nathan does not have proper data - and survey the new line and add some more, having decanted as much trimix into exploration bottles we can, in case it goes deeper.

Nobody wants to do deco in this cave in wetsuits.

Christine Grosart 04/12/2023 Christine Grosart 04/12/2023

Push [Poŏ SH] - by Rich Walker

It sounds a bit silly really. To push a cave. A cave is an empty void, and difficult to push in the conventional sense like you would push a car that won’t start. Pushing a cave means, to the cool kids, to extend the limit of exploration. To go further in that cave than anyone has been before. You have to be careful here as it is very easy to sound like you are lost up your own arse. I suppose that would need some sort of pushing to rectify as well.

*Kit stash at the bottom of the pitch in Perdreau-Fourmi*

The Perdreau Formi is a bit of everything in a cave sense. It starts with an awkward boulder choke at the entrance. For the uninitiated, a boulder choke is a pile of rocks, stuck and hopefully wedged in the passage of a cave. We are fortunate that this choke is normally dry, so we can get through it without dive gear. This often involves some pushing as well, but more like what you would do with a car. Or a turd.

Once you have got past the choke, you arrive in a large chamber at the top of a 45degree slope. The slope is slippery, but manageable. We put a rope on it though and descend down the slope well protected as at the end of the slope is a vertical drop, 20m high. If you were to loose your footing on the slope and fall off, you might be lucky to land in the sump with a splash, but you would probably bang on a few rocks on the way down, and more likely splatter somewhere in the boulder strewn area at the bottom. You might survive, but then you’d be faced with being pulled up the 20m pitch, up the slope and pushed (there’s that word again) through the boulder choke again.

Tim Webber and Jarvist Frost had done a fantastic job sorting out the vertical section of this cave. They had built a system of tensioned lines, pulleys, hauling lines and brakes that would have looked good on a Spanish galleon. Moving the equipment up and down the pitch was considerably easier than the brute force methods we’d employed last year, and made the trip run significantly faster.

The sump at the bottom of the pitch is well lined, and normally clear. We dived it last year and it was a short, but very pretty trip. The walls are white and the water has a blue tinge to it. The passage twists around, through an easy restriction to a maximum depth of 19m, where it comes up steeply into a large airbell.

It takes about 5 minutes to cross this sump, whereby you are faced with a steep wall 3m tall, at about a 70degree incline. The way on is this way. Climbing the wall is precarious, but manageable with small cylinders. The second sump is found on the other side of this wall at the bottom of a couple of round pots.

Tim and Jarvist had been hard at work in the airbell too. They had installed for us a wire ladder to climb the wall, a gear line to clip off bigger cylinders and similar assistance on the descent into sump 2. This was to be critical when we returned later in the week.

*Junction formed by Christine in 2011 when she discovered the way on in the Perdreau-Fourmi sump 2*

Diving in the second sump, the line is not so good. It is often loose, and many belays have come free, so the first dive this year was to check the state of this line, effect some repairs and to have a quick look to the end of the line laid by Joe Hesketh and Osama Gobara on last years project. Their line was excellent and the reel was there waiting for our return. The line ended at a depth of 29m.

The passage had dropped down 20m from the tie-in on the main line and we had been concerned about the cave heading into deep water. Spending a few minutes looking at the way on was time well spent, as it seemed that the passage levelled off, at least for as far as we could see. This was good news to us - shallow means more time exploring and less decompression.

Christine and I had a chat back at the surface about our decompression strategy. We had expected the cave to head deeper much more quickly than would now appear, which would require a more significant decompression strategy - this in simple terms meant a lot of decompression gas was needed.

Given our look at the end of the line, we decided not to pull in the big decompression cylinders, and stick with a smaller volume of oxygen, for use at 6m, rather than the big cylinder of 50% nitrox for 21m decompression. This was a gamble, but would make the logistics significantly easier. For our return dive to “push” the cave, we had mixed gas for a maximum of 60m in two large 15 & 12L cylinders each, and a small 5L cylinder filled with oxygen for decompression. We were diving in wetsuits, which in 11C water would be a push on a longer dive, but as long as we limited the dive time to an hour, we figured we’d be OK.

On the day of the dive, the gear went in very smoothly with assistance from Jean Tarrit and friends from the CLPA. These people have been so good to us in our efforts here, and never fail to turn up to help out. It’s not always the same people though, so maybe word is getting out ;-) All we needed to haul in was the cylinders, the deco gas and the wetsuits, as we’d left all of the other gear in after the first dive.

Chris and I dived through sump 1 and were ably assisted by Tim and Jarvist, and we pushed and they pulled our heavy cylinders up the rope to the start of sump 2. Kitting up in sump 2 was a bit more awkward, but again our helpers did a sterling job of pushing us into the water ready to dive. The oxygen was handed down, and we set off.

After depositing the oxygen at a suitable place to do the deco, we headed off down the line. This had come loose again and floated into the ceiling (I hate blue polyprop). We missed the junction as it had itself floated into and behind a crack in the ceiling, and we arrived at the old end of the line. Very puzzled, we backtracked, and this time spotted the junction, more visible from the other angle. We still weren’t pushed for time, so we headed off to the end of the line. Pushing on through a patch of low visibility left from our dive 3 days previously, we soon came across the start of Joe and Osama’s line. Junction marked, and away we went, soon reaching the reel that had been waiting a year for our return.

I picked it up, and looked at Chris. She had her survey gear out, and we exchanged an OK and we started to swim. I like to keep the number of tie offs to a minimum, and if possible to have spotted the next one before I leave the current one. This makes the surveyors job much easier, as the line doesn’t wave around, and tying off takes time, slowing down the act of pushing. The cave made this pretty easy, as it soon turned from large open passage into a narrow rift, 2m across at an angle of about 45degrees.

It was probably 20m high in places, pale walls with delicate mineral veins extending from the rock. It was pretty silty, and as usual in places less well travelled, percolation from your bubbles traveling up the walls quickly reduced the visibility, meaning that constant motion is preferable. I put in 6 tie-offs before the reel was empty, a total distance of around 50m. Looking ahead, the rift appeared to get narrower, although probably passable. My gut tells me that there is something else though. Maybe it surfaces at the top of the rift, or perhaps there is another connection we have missed along the new line.

I glance at Christine thimb the dive. She returns the compliment and we head for home, 25 minutes after leaving the airbell. Now it was time to see how well my line was laid and whether it was easy to follow in low visibility. My ability to write the blog says that it was good enough, I suppose.

We got back to the oxygen and given that the dive had not gone anywhere near as deep as expected, decided to not bother with any decompression and get back to the warm. We surfaced at around 40 minutes, with an empty line reel, my knife that I had found after loosing it on the first dive and a full survey of the line we’d just laid. A proper good day out!

Christine Grosart 30/11/2023 Christine Grosart 30/11/2023

A Grotty Sergent

Rich wanted a day off. So I took him caving!

Grotte du Sergeant. Image: Christine Grosart

Somehow over the last decade I have managed to avoid this very pleasant little cave. I must have misread the instructions because 300m walking later we had not found a 'large porch' - or anything resembling a cave.

This is not unusual. I have been up many garden paths, gum trees and on several spectacular wild goose chases in this region. It is hot, scrubby bush bashing and the best you can hope for is some sort of cairn, bit of paint (which could mean anything really - like, a really long GR route.....) or a couple of contradictory arrows painted on trees.

There was some pleasant scrambling on grippy limestone river bed with dried up plunge pools and lots of lizards, before we finally got to a 'combe' where we couldn't go any further - the cave had to be here.

It was - a vertical but not difficult scramble up the cliff face!

Once in the cool entrance, we wandered off down pretty but not spectacular dry fossil cave with a sandy floor. It probably does resurge in exceptional weather, but it hadn't in a very long time.

I took the opportunity to take some photos with my new camera and see how I got on. I'm reasonably happy with them, especially given there were only two of us.

I get the feeling this is the Herault's version of 'Goatchurch' - but much nicer and would be a good starter cave for any led groups I bring here in the future. It has nice little climbs, abseils to protect the vertical bits and pretties. Plus a great view from the entrance.

Well worth the afternoon out.

Christine Grosart 08/11/2023 Christine Grosart 08/11/2023

Perdreau set-up day

I decided that embarking on Garrel today would be a silly move. Still with remains of a chest infection, the caving trip, though moderate, is quite long and I am still quite weak, so we decided that the Perdreau-Fourmi was a more pleasant option.

True to form, Jean Tarrit rallied a few friends from his club and they arrived to help us carry our gear in two journeys up the riverbed.

I headed through the entrance squeeze and into the cave to start rigging the 45 degree slope and 15m pitch to the sump pool.

I decided to bring walkie talkies this time and was quite surprised that I was able to communicate from the sump pool to the surface!

Job done in a few hours, I headed over to the Source de Bueges, which sadly cannot be dived. Some pretty dragon flies were in residence.

We had some nice cold pressions at the local watering hole in St Jean-de-Bueges and headed back to the campsite to sort out cameras and have dinner.

Gear stash at the bottom of the pitch in Perdreau Fourmi.

Christine Grosart 08/11/2023 Christine Grosart 08/11/2023

Into the Blue

New cave passage in the Event de Perdreau Fourmi, discovered 2012, Screen grab: Christine grosart

Today was an excellent day - but not without a few teething troubles to get around first.

I picked up a missed call from one of my work colleagues, who was asking where I was. France, was the reply. It seems the great shift screw up had raised its ugly head again, but I doubt I have much to worry about as I am certain I booked this leave. In fact, I booked it in January. So, I tried to forget about it and concentrate on the cave diving.

We headed up to the cave and Jean had brought more friends along to help us. They were practising their SRT in the cave which seemed as good a reason as any to come along.

Jean and Claudie helping in the dry cave

Rich and I dropped the pitch and started to get our gear together. Next problem, Rich finds the team spare mask has shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. It had been in a pocket on one of the harnesses and not protected by a French Pot and had somehow got broken. Never mind. We can live without it and we have another anyway.

The sump is blue and inviting. I get the camera ready and Jean and friends watch us set off into sump 1, before heading out to the sunshine to await our arrival. We tell them we will be 2 hours at most.

Surfacing in the airbell shortly after passing sump 1, Rich and I can't really get our act together and we soon notice a little panting going on. Carbon dioxide. Great.

Chris at the top of the ladder beyond sump 1

We take things slowly and rig the ladder, before hauling the 12 litre bottles up and getting everything into sump 2.

Kitting up in sump 2 was fairly easy this time around and I get ready with the camera. We have a plan to shoot some video of the sump, especially our discoveries from 2011 and 2012. We don't hope for much as it is a small, fiddly sump covered in powder-like silt. But we gave it a go.

We get shooting and with plenty of time and gas, get to photograph and film everything we want to.

Then, we had one last job to do.

There was one bit of a chamber left to explore. I had always had a feeling there was more to it than just a boulder pile. So, I dispatch Rich off to take a quick look and a minute later he returned to say it was "Going".

Woo hoo!

Line reel tied in and I sieze the (rare!) opportunity to film exploration in progress.

Rich swam along with his reel and made some nice tie offs and the cave started to head downslope in a fractured, friable passage. It was sculptured and pretty and the water ahead was azure blue.

Behind Rich it was patchy, rust red and bits and pieces rained down from the roof as the first bubbles ever disturbed the rock.

As the visibility went to zero, I paused at 24m and heard Rich scratching around. I figured he wouldn't be long and steadily, hand over hand on the line, fumbled my way back to the tie off with Rich just behind me.

Happy, we thumbed the dive and had a pleasant swim home in patchy visibility. I stopped to photograph a worm, the type I had not seen before in a sump.

Surfacing back at the airbell, we de-kitted, pleased with the days work.

Not surprisingly, after a recent chest infection and a cold, I had some trouble descending back into sump 2 to get home. Fortunately my bottle of trusty Otravine got me to depth but wasn't keen on getting my sinuses back up again.

It's a divers worst nightmare (well, one of them anyway) and despite hanging around on the way up trying to get my sinuses to let go, it was obvious I was going to get a reverse block.

I did and it hurt a lot, making my eyes water and temporarily blind. Rich took my bottles off and I eventually heard the relieving squeak, followed by some blood and the pain subsided. Not pleasant.

Jean was at the top of the pitch waiting for us as we surfaced. He was worried as we were half an hour overdue. This was probably due to our taking our time in the CO2 ridden airbell. We apologised for worrying him but he didn't mind and we showed him our photos to cheer him up.

Chris holds the empty line reel in sump 2, Perdreau Fourmi

A gang of cavers had showed up to help carry all the gear back in one run, including a very small child who was lugging 2 tackle bags and going better up the hill than I was!

A cold beer in St Jean de Bueges followed by pizza in Laroque seemed a fitting end to a very pleasant day, all things considered. Finally things are going our way.

Christine Grosart 05/11/2023 Christine Grosart 05/11/2023

Event de Rodel

Today we had plans to go the Event de Rodel.

This pretty little gem of a cave is one of the easier ones to access, but still requires a carry and some crawly, stoopy caving to get to the waters edge.

It was a much easier carry this year and all except Andras opted to dive in wetsuits. The gear was carried through scratchy scrub a short distance through bushes and up a short, dry riverbed. We then changed into caving grots and chained the five sets of diving gear to the start of the sump.

It soon became apparent that my trainee, Jarvist, was capable of shifting twice as much gear as everyone else in half the time - so we blundered along and let him get on with it!

We were a little alarmed by Andras' 10 litre cylinders, so he devised a hardcore technique for carrying them through the cave!

Even more alarming was his sidemount set-up - which had clearly been designed by someone who had never been in a dry cave in their lives, never mind had to carry diving gear through one!!

Andras watched in awe as Rich and I glided through the water easily in our minimalist UK sidemount set-up. He'll be borrowing one of ours tomorrow to see how he likes it.

The Rodel didn't disappoint and I shot some video of Rich and Andras, which had pleasing results - except the LED torch was causing red dotted stripes due to a problem with certain power settings. I couldn't fix this underwater so we had to make do with what we ended up with.

Christine Grosart 05/11/2023 Christine Grosart 05/11/2023

Source du Sorgues - The Picnic

Chris in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker

The Sorgues is in Aveyron and is a great little cave to finish the trip with.

We invited Mehdi Dighouth to come over for the day and Rich and I set off to the cave to have a picnic before diving.

Oz and Joe set off to the Durzon - because their instructions had the GPS co-ordinates mixed up!!!!!

The Sorgues is a beautiful river emerging from the cirque rockface and feeds the fish-farm just downstream. It used to be the case that divers were asked to hose off their drysuits before entering the water but now the fish-farm seem not to care and divers are welcome here.

We settled down to lunch by the weir and Mehdi produced some home-made Fois Gras and some fruit jelly thing which was amazing.

We were still waiting for the others to show up and without a mobile signal here, wondered just how long we should wait. Rich still needed fills from the compressor so couldn't dive with me until Oz and the compressor arrived. It was decided that I should go for a dive with Mehdi and Rich could dive with the others when (if) they showed up.

Mehdi and I set off through the maze of boulders and concrete tunnels which fill the entrance. I first dived here in 2007 but didn't remember much about the cave as I was pre-occupied with a top-heavy independent twinset, having moved from sidemount to backmount gear myself, without any advice or training. I was uncomfortable throughout and didn't enjoy the dive.

It was great this time to know that I could just get on with it and relax.

We dived to what I consider the end of the cave. The main, spacious passage just ends and the way on is a small, narrow rift which goes up to about 3m depth from 31m and nobody has been any further. It is reported to be tight, nasty and a dead-end boulder choke - so we stay in the big stuff!

With loads of gas to spare, we turn round and I get the opportunity to waft my HID around and have a real good look at this cave. The geology is beautiful and there are ribbons of calcite protruding like a dragons back all along the edges and the floor. The water is typically clear, with a blue tinge and no decompression is required for such a short dive.

We surface to see that the others have arrived and Rich is getting his cylinders filled. Elaine and Duncan set off for a short dive and Elaine returns with plenty of gas, so I offer to take her in again behind the filming crew. Rich, Oz and Joe have a lengthy dive briefing for the camera work and Mehdi sneaks in for another dive behind them. Elaine and I stealthily follow them all and we are treated to a fantastic view of four divers, all with bright filming lights and HIDs, spread out down the passage. Elaine is thrilled with her dive and we call it a day.

The wonderful Sorgues. Image: Rich Walker

Mehdi returns and gives me an impromptu lesson on his Megdalon rebreather. I always said I would never go over to RB because there is so much I can do on open circuit to last me a lifetime - and I haven't got anywhere near my limit of open circuit yet. But maybe in ten years time I may think differently.

We end the day with much giggling and silliness as Joe asks Mehdi for an interview about the Esperelle. Both Joe and Mehdi are extremely professional - you get the feeling they have both done this sort of thing before....I am in the background asking Mehdi questions in French and the video looks amazing.

Then it's Rich's turn to be in front of the camera and Joe's techniques for shedding a little golden light on the subject has us in stitches.

All too soon it is time to go. Mehdi has to go and give a talk at the speleo congress and we have to shoot off as we've been invited onto the Hortus Plateau - aka middle of absolutely nowhere - by the CLPA for a pizza party!

Christine, Mehdi, Elaine, Osama, Joe, Duncan, Rich

Christine Grosart 05/11/2023 Christine Grosart 05/11/2023

The seven hour lunch

We arrived at the camp site in one piece yesterday. The tents are up (one for us, one for the gear....) and shopping done.

I'm still sick with some sort of chest infection off the back of a cold, so today we tried to take it easy.

I had a phone call from my good friend Jean Tarrit to tell us he was coming to our campsite and we were to have lunch at his house in Larzac to discuss plans for the two weeks.

Fuelled with coffee and coughing like a donkey with asthma, I was driven via some stunning scenery to Larzac - the long way round as the Gourney's are closed for repair work in the Vis gorge.

The drive took ages but we finally met up with Jean and headed to his house.

It was a beautiful, typically French rustic country home with big beams and huge fireplaces.

We were spoiled from the outset with several courses, including crevettes (shrimp), magret de canard, sautee potatoes, salad, bread, cheese, tarte au poire and a 12 year old Bordeaux.

Many hours later we went for a short wander to take a look at the view over the Larzac plateau which is cave hunting heaven.

Back at the house, we discussed the geology of the caves we were pushing, fault line directions and made plans for the week. Rich let out the occasional snore as he nodded in the armchair.

The plan is to go back to Garrel on Saturday but this depends on me being well enough and we can put it back a week if we need to.

Christine Grosart 05/11/2023 Christine Grosart 05/11/2023

Caves & Wine - What else is there?

After yesterday’s antics, I wanted a day off.

I met no resistance from Rich who was beginning to realise that the word ‘holiday’ had been misconstrued.

We decided to go and visit the vineyard at Saint-Saturnin and follow it up with a visit to a stunning show-cave, Grotte Clamouse.

I hadn’t visited either for almost a decade, so I was really looking forward to going back and showing it to Rich. Joe kindly loaned me one of his cameras so I was able to take some photos and video of our day out.

The vineyard was a great photo opportunity and we left with boxes and bottles of local wines, some for gifts and the rest for ourselves.

£100 lighter, we set off down the road to the show-cave.

We were treated to the best AV (in English and French) of cave geology, formation and 3D models that I have ever seen. It was outstanding and I wish some British show-caves would put as much effort into their experiences as this place. The show-cave guide was well educated, spoke in two languages and gave a detailed and interesting tour and knew the cave inside out.

There were plenty of photo opportunities as well as a music and light show, which might not be to everyone’s taste, but to be honest I find it hard to see how else they could show off the pinnacle of this fabulous cave in any other way. It was well done without being tacky and the tour was worth every penny of the 9 euros each….

Elaine and Duncan meanwhile had been spending their time diving the Rodel and hunting out various caves in the area to go and visit.

We headed back to camp central and dug out the BBQ having raided the local Super-U in Ganges. This fabulous supermarket has a meat and fish counter to die for and we went a bit mad, buying a big bag of tiger prawns, rack of ribs, some trout and salmon steaks, whole mackerel, beers plus salad things etc. Barely 60 euros later, we walked away with bags of goodies, amazed at how cheap it was.

It felt like the ‘last supper’ as we all sat round under the fairy lights, watching cave diving video films and footage that Joe shot of the Gourney-Ras. It was push day the next day in the Event de Perdreau – cylinders had been filled, trimix salvaged and gear was pretty much packed. All we had to do was go and lay more line…..what could possibly go wrong?......

Christine Grosart 05/11/2023 Christine Grosart 05/11/2023

A Grand Day Out

It was not a pretty sight at 9am this morning!

Last year we were chased all over the French countryside by Jean Tarrit and his friend, Jean-Claude, who were desperate to find us and show us an exciting dive site in a cave called the Garrel.

Ongoing cave. We planned to dive the Siphone des Pas Perdus.

I had visited the Garrel in April 2003 and remember it as an easy, dry and pretty cave with no tackle required. I don’t recall there being a sump, but Nathan Boinet the local activist in these parts, had been dipping his toe in the sumps at the end of the system, some of which came to nothing early on and one which was looking to ‘go’ – but he was diving back mounted 7s and couldn’t fit through the etroiture (squeeze).

So, we were invited to take a look using our ‘techniques anglaise’ (sidemount) and were promised a large group of ‘slaves’ from the CLPA to carry all our equipment.

We were due to meet the French cavers at 9am near St Jean de Buéges but the troops were not to be rallied.

Tim Webber and Jarvist Frost arrived last night having made awesome time – but they were paying for it in exhaustion.

Duncan Smith and Elaine Hill also arrived yesterday – but Elaine was staying firmly between her tent and the toilet block, having eaten something dodgy.

Duncan was up and about, Rich was dragged out of his pit by me and there was no sign of life next door.

The plan was for Tim and I to take a look at this ‘squeeze’ and see if we could pass it. I would go first and sort the line and have a look, then, assuming I would be too fat to fit, as Nathan had insisted on a ‘thin diver’, I would hand over to skinny Tim to continue.

So, having had a minor epic trying to find bread for breakfast, we got on the road and Tim would show up later with Jarvist in tow.

The French team were at the side of the road, half kitted up and there was a buzz in the air. Lots of banter and greetings and introductions went around and after a degree of faff, we set off – minus SRT kits. This concerned us a little as the others all seemed to have them…….Nathan assured us that the climbing was easy and we weren’t to worry. So we didn’t.

Five minutes in to the entrance we were met with a 15m pitch!!

Never mind……The French guy ahead of me descended and Duncan behind me lent me his descender. I attached it to my belt, abseiled down the pitch and sent it back up the rope…..

Dry cave passage in Garrel on the way to the sump.

I could see this being quite a fun trip for those of us minus rope gear.! However, the French were obliging and over the course of several rope climbs and abseils, I employed just about every technique in the book – including those with red crosses through them! I used a stop, figure of 8, Italian hitch and krab, one or two jammers depending on what I could scrounge at the time, a full kit at one stage – loaned by Jean-Claude who can free climb just about anything – someone else’s cows-tail hauling me from above and quite a lot of brute force and ignorance!!

It was excellent fun and Jean was correct in his time estimation. It took 4 hours to get our teams and two sets of divers gear to the sump. There was climbing, crawling and boulder chokes by the bucket load and it was very, very hot and sweaty in there!

But the banter and morale kept everyone going with frequent breaks.

We arrived at the sump and it was large, blue and clear and very inviting. I was desperate to get in and cool down!!

Everyone arrived on the boulder slope and began unpacking their lunch. It was a natural amphitheatre, with graded seats for the cavers to watch the divers kit up in comfort.

We treated ourselves to sausage roll, taboulé, bread and cheese. Nathan became insistent that it would be better for two people to dive together as the second diver would not get to see anything. I was unsure about this, but as he had dived it and we hadn’t, we went along with his suggestion and Tim and I kitted up together.

The line was broken at the very beginning, so we tied the reel off and set off down the sand slope in zero visibility. I went in front with the reel and we laid 20m of line until we found Nathan’s broken line in situ. We tied into it at a good belay and the water suddenly became crystal clear as we moved away from the sand slope and into a level passage with a boulder floor, about 3m high and 5m wide.

We patched up the line in one place where it was needed and soon came to the end of Nathan’s line, marked with a 45m tag, just at the start of the squeeze.

I had a good look at it and it didn’t look too bad, so after a quick chat with Tim, I set off through the squeeze and passed it easily, stopping for a moment to make a good tie off at the end, before turning slightly rightwards into bigger passage.

Tim duly followed and continued tying the line off behind me. We moved forward until the passage seemed to come to a bit of a break down and spotted a higher passage so moved on up into that and went forward some more. We laid about 42m of new line altogether after the squeeze.

The biggest problem in this sump was the visibility. It is a static sump so there is no flow to help you. The silt seemed to rain down in clouds from the roof – probably because there had never been any air bubbles in there before to dislodge it.

Furthermore, the roof sloped upwards so bubbles were travelling up the roof ahead of us and raining silt clouds down like swirling mists of powder, right in front of our noses and interfering with our visibility.

This problem began to obstruct progress and I got to a bit of passage where the way on was less obvious and it looked to be breaking down. I stopped to have a good look and was engulfed in red swirling powder – so I thumbed the dive and tied the line off, cut the reel free and we set off back home in awful viz.

Following the thin line home was much easier than I anticipated and we soon arrived at the sand slope and looked up to see the dozen or so cavers lights glowing on the embankment in expectation, all staring at us through the ripples on the surface of the water.

I gave Nathan and the expectant audience a brief explanation of what we had found – in dubious French – and received a round of applause and what looked like an explosion of paparazzi!!

We cleared up, had some water and food and started the journey out en masse, which was not without amusement!

Still minus an SRT kit, I scrounged all sorts of items on the way home. The other brits were having similar epics and we ended up fighting over the sole karabiner for use with an Italian hitch!

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The Garrel team 2012

The journey out was a little slicker and we stopped in the ‘Salle de dejeuné’ which Jean explained was the resting place for the original explorers.

We arrived at the last pitch and I was given an SRT kit from somebody and made my way up the pitch. Rich was also donated kit from somewhere but I have no idea how the others got out!

I arrived at the traverse line and was faced with a French caver, lying on his side looking like he wanted to die!

He said in English (cue French accent): “Christine, please can you 'elp me..? Can you take my equipment because I am very, very tired….”

I said “Of course!”

He went on to explain: “I cannot feel my arms or my legs any more!”

Poor guy!

He had left his jammer on the rope and couldn’t face the return journey of all of one metre to retrieve it!!

I offered to take his bag the last 15 metres of uphill crawling and he insisted we do it together!

We surfaced to the flashes of cameras and dusk was settling.

A gang of us returned to the campsite for a great BBQ cooked by Rich and far too much wine!

A grand day out!

Success!

A huge thank you to the CLPA and friends for their support and images.

Christine Grosart 05/11/2023 Christine Grosart 05/11/2023

"Has anyone seen my Eagle?" by Richard Walker

The Aven de Rouet looks like a goer on the survey. A straight down shaft to about 70m, and then ongoing horizontal passage. It’s right next to the road as well, so why the hell haven’t I heard of it before? Needs a look, I think to myself.

Christine and I headed over to the site on Monday night to confirm that the cave was where we expected, and to look at how we’d need to get the gear to the water. We’ve learned that nothing is easy here.

Sure enough, 30m from the road, across some flat ground, we find a bloody great hole in the ground. It’s about 10m in diameter, and dropped to depth of about 20m, where the water was.

There was a steel gantry jutting out over the top of it, and this looked a perfect point from which to lower the gear. Two steps away was a steel ladder down to a small gravel platform perfect to stand on while suiting up.

This was looking too good to be true, so how come I’ve never heard of this place before?

Weird. Needs a look.

We got up almost before lunchtime on Tuesday and started blending gas. 15/55 for me, Christine and Andras, and a couple of deco gasses for good measure. Tim and Jarvist were going to have a play with some trimix too on a short dive after ours.

Blending was creative, as ever, in these sorts of places but we all ended up with something useable in the end. We loaded the cars, and sent Tim and Jarvist to set up the pulleys and ropes while we ate lunch. Seemed reasonable to me. All the time I’m thinking “why haven’t I heard of this place before?”.

We arrive at the cave to see Tim stood on the gantry with an elaborate network of slings, carabiners, stops and pulleys dangling over the edge, and Jarvist at the bottom explaining how things will bang into the wall as they descend.

They fiddle around a bit, make some more complications and we have a working 3:1 pulley system, with a releasable deviation, which makes it go round a corner.

It’s so easy, I still wonder why everyone doesn’t dive here, and why I haven’t heard of it.

We lowered the gear down (OK, Tim lowered the gear down) and Jarvist makes a neat pile of it in the pool, and we three head down to the water like professionals.

Andras starts screaming when he sees the toad in the water.

Apparently he doesn’t like them.

Christine wanted to kiss it, but I reminded her that it needed to be a frog for that to work...

We put on our gear and did our checks floating in the water, and remarked that the blue water had gone a bit mucky with our movements. I was sure it would clear out below us though, and said so like someone who knew what he was talking about. So far so good. I still can’t believe I’ve never heard of this place - it’s such an easy site.

We descend, Christine in front, Andras and then me. Following the line through the surface muck, and sure enough, the water clears and we are treated to pale limestone walls and a vertical passage.

It’s not very big, I think.

No matter, I’m going to drop these decompression cylinders pretty soon and then the clanging will stop. The Oxygen gets dropped in a small (1.5m round passage), and hangs on the line that has a convenient loop in it. Someone has clearly been here before and understands that you need to drop gear off.

The line turns into 9mm climbing rope, and continues to drop vertically through the pretty, white, cave tunnel. Which is still no more than 1.5m across.

We are three divers, stacked vertically.

There is some difference in approach to dropping down. I prefer the head down and swim, while the others seem to prefer some sort of feet down, reverse climbing strategy. The 9mm rope gets replaced by 5mm stainless steel cable. This is an odd choice, I think. I’d hate to have to cut that if I got tangled in it.

Still, visibility is good, and the line well laid. Still don’t understand why more people don’t dive here, even though it’s a bit tight.

More gear gets deposited and we start to descend. 30m, still nice clear water, pretty passageway, small. 40m, same. 50m - the rope ends.

Quelle horreur!

There is some old thin cave line arranged into a not-so-neat birds nest, with ends trailing out of it. Christine decides that this is too deep to be arsing about laying line in a tight passage with potentially much more loose rubbish beyond, and we reverse our direction back towards the surface.

Shame, it’s a nice looking cave and I’d have liked to see more of it. Can’t understand why I’ve not heard of it before.

Bubbles. Seemingly innocuous things.

Children make them with soap and play with them for hours. They are in beer and champagne. They could be considered to be fun things in some quarters. In a cave, they tend to float up along the walls.

If those walls are covered in a fine layer of silt, such as you might find in a cave that was not well travelled, then the bubbles dislodge the silt and rapidly reduce the visibility. If that cave is vertical, then those bubbles do that all the way to the surface, getting bigger all the time.

In fact, Jarvist and Tim were watching the pool while we dived and said that it turned into a “muddy silty vortex” within minutes of our departure.

They elected to not dive.

Meanwhile, back in the water, the visibility has dropped to something like tea with a splash of milk. Never mind, it’s a vertical cave, and we have a big 9mm rope to follow. We wriggle and turn our way back up the passage and soon arrive back at the 21m stop. We all managed to switch gas, not that it was really needed given the short dive, and continue out. Lots of gear plus steel wire. Nice. Fortunately only a few minor hang ups, and we’re soon at the oxygen pickup, and ready to head out.

At this point, Christine decided that she didn’t like it anymore and managed to reverse the team order.

Exactly how, I do not know, but she and Andras got past me in a 1m wide tunnel. Andras claims that it had something to do with Chris grabbing his testicles in a modified “touch contact signal” for “move”.

He moved. Like a rat up a drainpipe.

We surfaced exchanged a few “pleasantries” and decided to get out. I’m starting to understand why I haven’t heard of this place.

Then the fun started.

I looked up to see 2 locals stood on the gantry waving. Cave diving is often a spectator sport, in the same way people like to watch car crashes or why Romans went to watch criminals get eaten by lions. Turned out that he was a local caver and had been in there before.

Best to not do it with lots of people, he said.

Visibility gets bad apparently...

Well, they were nice and we chatted for a while. They left and enter local no. 2. His communication was less easy to follow. Basil Fawlty probably taught him how to talk to foreigners. Speak louder and faster when they don’t understand. Get more frustrated. Speak louder and faster.

He wasn’t angry, although he did look like a farmer, and therefore liable to say “quitter ma terre” at any point. Probably loudly.

He mentioned that he had a similar hole on his land. Bottomless, apparently, and if we wanted to go and dive it, we’d be very welcome. “Just like this one?” we asked - “Oui” came the reply. “Merci Messieur, mais nous partons demain”. He wandered off to shoot something.

More gear came up the magical winch thing.

Then two girls get out of a car and start running over towards us. They are flapping their arms and waving at us.

“avez-vous vu mon aigle”, or “Have you seen my eagle?”

To help with translation, they were flapping their arms and cawing as well.

Seemed obvious to me. I was tempted to say that it had grabbed my pet toad and I was very upset, but my French isn’t good enough. They seemed very upset, and continued driving around, looking for their eagle.

We stopped for Pizza in Laroque on the way home, which is a lovely way to end a days diving, eating nice food watching the river run, and wondering why nobody dives in that cave.

Christine Grosart 01/11/2023 Christine Grosart 01/11/2023

The Bloody French Cave

The CLPA had been keen for the last few years for us to go and visit the Event de Cambon.

Frank Vasseur had dived the short, shallow sump about 20 years ago and to their knowledge, nobody had ever been back.

Now, even in his 20s Frank was no slouch. In fact, he was probably considerably fitter and harder than he is now.

I did make a feeble protest that I couldn’t see what we would achieve that Frank could not, but it was information that the cavers wanted rather than caverns measureless. They were intent on digging down from the top of the gorge and this cave was important to them to know if it connected or not.

We said we would take a look.

According to the description, Frank had surfaced and immediately encountered several climbs which got higher and higher. As he was alone, he made a retreat.

Nobody knows what happened after that and Frank could not remember much about the cave at all.

The CLPA wanted us to survey the sump, the dry passage beyond and get a compass direction.

How hard could it be?

So, we met up in St Maurice de Navacelles to have coffee with our sherpas – or ‘slaves’ as Jean prefers to call them and picked up a Disto-X for surveying beyond the sump.

In convoy, we set off down the twisty hairpin bends of the Cirque de Navacelles and parked up at river level by the Vis. The walk to the cave entrance was relatively flat but about 800m.

Some enthusiastic deforestation then ensued as the French began clearing the snaggy branches and cleared away a grubby little cave entrance. It had filled with stones from the winter rains but by the time Rich and I had rigged our cylinders, the entrance was dug out again.

I went for a quick look inside.

Hmm. This was going to be a fun kitting up spot. Nowhere to stand up, nowhere really to sit. It was what we were used to in the UK but it was a long way to go to dive something like this in France. Oh well.

We passed the gear in to the cave and Rich went ahead and kitted up first. I remained just upslope of him, regularly kicking stones down at him while he thrashed about trying to get his fins on.

Frank’s old line was there but we needed to lay our own knotted line for surveying. The sump pool had gone to zero so surveying was looking less and less likely.

Once ready and crammed into the tiny muddy pool, we set off downslope through a squeeze with a rubble floor and sloping roof.

The sump was about 40m long as described and 7m deep. The water cleared after the squeeze and had better dimensions.

On surfacing, there was a near vertical rift – made of mud – and a ladder hanging down from above which was just out of reach and no means of getting to it. It looked as if Frank had dived the sump when water levels were somewhat higher.

Noses turned up, we returned to the start of the sump pool to report our findings. The viz had gone to zero and not good enough for a proper survey.

Then, as if our failure was not enough, then began the thunder. Torrential rain and thunder and lightening crashed all around us and the Cirque de Navacelles while we tried to pack our gear up.

Rich and I elected to walk back in our wetsuits as our clothes were sodden.

We got back to the van and took it in turns to get into the back and change. It was miserable and getting colder.

Jean invited everyone back to his house for a welcome cup of tea and to dry out a little. We made it up to ourselves by watching the video we shot of the new passage in the Perdreau.

Jean was in danger of having a power cut, so we headed back to our campsite to inspect the damage.

Water had infiltrated the front porch of the tent, which was not entirely unexpected and Rich had already moved electrical items to higher ground that morning.

Water had also infiltrated Rich’s Rude Nora caving torch battery which was now no longer working. Meh.

We decided to drown our sorrows in a local pizzeria – but each and every single restaurant in the region were closed. So, back to the campsite for a tin of sausage and beans and leffe beer. We’ve had better days, but that’s the nature of cave diving. It ain’t sun and stalictites all the time.

Christine Grosart 29/10/2023 Christine Grosart 29/10/2023

Stunning Sorgues

Chris admiring the calcite 'ridge' in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker

The Event du Sorgues is one of my favourite resurgence flops in the area. The only problem is that it is too short!

It is about 220m long and ends in an impenetrable, vertical rift which is too tight to pass in any kit configuration.

This is desperately frustrating as it is the major resurgence for the mighty 'Mas Raynal', 4Km upstream.

It is, however, beautiful, with no access restrictions (despite having to practically drive through somebody's living room to get to a parking spot - don't take any vehicle bigger than a Berlingo!)

Chris diving the Sorgues. Image: Rich Walker

It is heavily managed with dams and weirs built in to presumably control the water which flows through the fish farm. The water is cold, about 8 degrees and is almost always blue and clear.

I was intent on getting some photos here so we took the expensive camera kit, filled our cylinders, Rich gave me an impromptu lesson on his JJ CCR and just as my eyes began to glaze over, the bottles were ready and we went diving.

The Sorgues is geologically beautiful, with calcite ridges protruding from the floor and almost perfectly square passages with boulder strewn floors. Rippled sand catches the light as you swim mid passage, able to see your own shadow on the floor in the video lights.

The average depth is about 26m so you have just enough time to go to the 'end' and back within decompression limits. We were taking our time over photos and carrying a heavy tripod to mount the back-lights was a little tricky, so we didn't quite reach the end but we weren't far off when we turned for home.