Vercors Week: Day 2 – Gouffre Berger

Connor, Jason, John, Miranda, Scott, Steve, Tom, Yolanda

The big B was upon us. Connor and Steve had their meticulously packed bags ready and weighed ready for their attempt on -1100m. The rest of us were to go for Camp 1 at -500m. Final meals had been eaten and we headed out for everything we’d been training for and stressing over for the last couple of months.

We’d chosen a leisurely start time of 9am when registering our trip at Base Camp, and trundled up the slow and battered road to Parking des Molieres. Thick mist and the ringing of cow bells greeted us as we got changed, and we headed off.

Yolanda’s cow phobia was rampant as we wove between a herd on the track, but we soon cleared them and headed into the murky and eerie forest for some extended route-finding. Just as we began to doubt our directions, the word ‘Gouffre’ scratched onto a wooden post pointed us onto the caver’s trail that winds through the overgrown lapiaz to reach the entrance. For future reference, the route is roughly: North from the car park along the grassy ridge; after it begins descending towards woods, take a right and head downhill. Follow yellow and green painted route markers until you reach a signpost in the woods showing you’re at Lapiaz. From here, take the downhill path and after a few minutes, a wooden signpost with ‘Gouffre’ scratched on marks the caver’s path – then just follow the cairns.

Team -500

After letting the bottoming team head in first, we followed them down the short entrance doline pitch, through a slot onto the Puits de Ruiz. Connor’s calls of ‘Rope Free’ at least 3 pitches ahead of us rang on deaf ears. After this, the Holiday Jumps lead down broken pitches to emerge on a ledge above the Puits du Cairn. At this point, Scott wasn’t feeling it and beat a hasty retreat for some hiking and car sleeping, taking Tom’s sandwiches with him in his Daren drum.

We descended to the cairn at the bottom of the pitch and recongregated, dropping off a bottle of isotonic and some cashews for our later selves. From here, things were set to get a little more awkward as we entered the Meanders – a few hundred metres of traversing in a tall meander, getting higher and higher above the floor. There were traverse lines in for most of it, but this wasn’t a huge relief when the footholds ran out. But nobody had a particularly wretched time, on the way in at least…

Miranda chirped happy noises as she declared we’d reached the end of the meanders, and we were now at the head of the Puits Garby. This 38m was fairly straightforward with a nice take-off from a solid little trough, although Tom had issues with the 9mm rope sliding too quickly through his Stop – no need to touch the lever, both hands were holding the tail end trying to slow it down.

At the base of Garby, it was straight back into another meander, this time with the occasional wooden stemple, which were actually quite annoying as they trapped any dangling tackle sacks. This meander was also a little spooky, with the traverse line ending in the middle to leave you to trust your footing above the yawning drops below. This too ended though, with a welcome traverse line appearing, which descended grubbily to the head of the Gontards pitch.

The rest of the entrance series followed in quick sucession, down a few short pitches and to the slightly spooky head of the Puits Aldo. This involved some minor acrobatics to get out to the hang, a 42 metre drop down a lovely gaping shaft.

Happy to be down all the bigger stuff, we wound our way through the short passage at the base to emerge into the humongous Grand Galerie. It was a great time for a quick refuel, Miranda’s Babybels supplementing Tom’s lack of sandwich planning.

The character of this half of the trip was obviously different, weaving among rocks in vast passage, occasionally following the Starless River as it wound into the depths. We soon reached the empty Lac Cadou which was just a basin of slippery horrid mud, then on into the Salle Bourgin for our first taste of reaaally big stals. After a few photos we continued on to meet 3 short easy pitches which spat us out into the top of the Grand Eboulis (Great Rubble Heap). This was just a bit of scree and boulder-hopping steeply downwards, and we knew the lowest point of the trip awaited us.

We arrived at Camp 1, not sure what to expect but it was probably more than 3 tarps hung over ropes, sitting empty. Where was the memory foam? It was a good job we’d opted for the shorter trip.

Then it was time to admire the Salle des Treize, with its amazing stal columns and green gour pools. Tom snuck on down a handline climb to ensure he’d definitely passed the -500m mark, then we perched by the pools for a Mars and some hydration. Now our real hard work would begin…

It seemed much longer and more knackering progressing up the large master cave, which made sense given that we were ascending around 250m during this part, 90% without rope. At the Petit General, the team we’d bumped into lower down had pulled the rope up through the deviation a little too far, and it was only by climbing partway up the cascade and standing on tiptoes that Tom managed to get it back down. Onwards and upwards, and we caught the other team up by the bottom of Aldo. Tom rudely overtook them, with the thought of getting Aldo behind him overriding all etiquette. After a wait at the top for them to re-overtake and the rest of Team -500 to ascend, we continued on our way up the short pitches and the Gontard, which marked the start of the tricky 2nd Meanders.

These were rather disgusting on the way out, with a few awkward and exposed moves from the top of Gontard before the traverse line abruptly ends for no particular reason, and again it was good to get these and the stemples behind us to reach Garby. The last biggish pitch to get out of the way, and it seemed to tire us all a lot more than expected given how many hours we’d now been going at it. And then it was the first Meanders left to struggle along. We were swamped with relief upon reaching the cairn, as it was only an easy succession of shorter pitches separating us from the surface now.

That said, they were still exhausting and particularly when having to pass the rebelay on the Ruiz, arm strength was really starting to wane. But Scott’s friendly face peering down the entrance doline was a welcome sight and encouraged us all up the entrance pitch, and with a deep sigh of relief we signed out. By this point it was dark, although Scott’s now intimate knowledge of the route led us unerringly back to the car, although not without us all whinging from sheer exhaustion. After signing out at a ghostly quiet base camp, we headed back for post-midnight snacking, a celebratory beer and we all slept fantastically.

Just starting – keen and raring to go…

… 11 hours later: Completely Bergered!

Team -1100

Having walked in together as a group and enjoying the usual walk chat, we couldn’t help but think that in 12hrs time we would be having very different experiences. Team -500 would probably be aching but enjoying the local wine and food, then Steve and I would be ascending from the bottom, just us two dreaming of the very same thing. 

As we reached the surface camp, we all kitted up sorted kit out for the last time before heading down, then in short words said “see you in a bit” to the others. We were quickly pulled back by Miranda for a team photo, (it kind of reminded me of something mum would do on your first day starting upper school) then we made first decent of the entrance pitch. Time in 1030hrs. Descending just a couple in and growing distance from Tom who followed behind us, the calls for “rope free” turned more into distant mumbles and as Steve dropped his first bottle at the base of the Cairn pitch, we separated off from the other into the meanders.

After battling some awkward moves and shuffles through the narrow rifts with some slightly concerning empty voids below, we soon arrived at Garby’s Pitch where we realised the cave had a lot to offer, pretty much all three pitches grew deeper and deeper in size. By the time we bottomed Aldo our every growing interest of how large the main river series was going to be was soon answered. With an few scrambles and a couple short crawls, we arrived at the colossal Grand Gallery. A couple of pictures taken and a quick drink, we decided not to hang around much longer knowing just about enough to know what was still ahead of us. We soon approached a very empty Lac Cadoux which only welcomed us with a very bog like centre, we scurried around it and continued further and further along the starless river. 

Now having not seen the others for nearly 1hr 30, we were soon reminded of our fellow humans. Sat amongst a large pile of boulders was a party of four, who had taken a moment to stop for some food and a hot drink. Quickly realising the language barrier we made short conversation, they asked “how far you going?” we replied “1000, to the bottom” and a short concerning response of “Oh very far, long way”. A quick farewell and all the best, we pressed on down the Great Rubble Heap. Soon arriving a camp 1, we ditched our return kit and had a quick snack and drink. Not knowing when we might return we pressed on to reach The Hall of Thirteen, which to our surprise two cavers were setting up for some speleophotography and had lit up the entire area. It was a pleasure to see it all in its colours, crystal white formation with Light green and blue lagoon surrounding them. The temptation to stop for longer and enjoy the view but NO.. we had to keep moving. Time check 1250hrs 

Passing great gours and more great formations, we progressed onto the cascades and canal section. Multiple deep water traverses and waterfall pitches, we were feeling good with our pace and in a positive mind set enjoying or time and the challenges we were faced with. |We had previously worked out that we were already a couple hours ahead of our predicted schedule and were eager to knock of a few more hours. We soon moved into more impressive and loud waterfall sections and the volume increased the further we went. Claudines cascade and the topographers pitch welcomed us into the Grand Canyon, more abseils and scrambles followed and were rewarded with yet more large passage on great formations. Passing the Hall of eight and camp 2 we approached the Grand Cascade, it almost sounded like the cave was pulsing due to the immense water falling down it, you could feeling the booming of crashing water as it almost appeared  to fall into an endless abyss which was masked with spray. At touch down from the descent and through the screen of spray, we spotted another group of cavers who were returning to the surface. This was a bit of a surprise as just before camp 2 we met a team from Belgium who had been to the bottom and reported to us they hadn’t seen anyone ahead of them and presumed we would now been progressing on alone for the remainder of our decent. Passing a further 9 cavers all in short space of another, we were now soon approaching the Hurricane Pitch. Yet again the sounds was met before the beats itself, the we were forced onto a small ledge to begin a awkward and daunting traverse onto the head. It was certainly a moment of feeling exposed, as you were commit fully to dangling of the traverse line over the void below, then move yourself across onto the Ab line with no ground insight, it was certainly adrenaline activating. Checking things at multiple times at multiple rebelys, we signalled each other with the whistle this time to call the ropes and eventually made it to the base. Both laughing meeting each other at the ground we were both happy but slightly relieved we had passed it. 

Our last decent had past, we had made it to Inlet -1000. There was a good amount of water coming from it , probably due to the previous stormy days before. We wanted to push a bit further and managed to make short progress before meeting some very deep water. Neither of us fancying the deep cold swim, Steve removed his worn glove and we shock hand and congratulated each other on the decent. All that was left now was 1100 meter of Ascent… Amazing. Time check 1710hrs

The return was much different, each pitch the struggle grew and the fatigue began to slowly make an appearance. Checking the survey the reality of how far we had come set in after finding we had been moving nearly two hours now of going up and still had roughly 800 meter to go. Steady progress and keeping on pushing on continued and tried to keep our pace.  The Cascades and canals certainly seemed to go on and on but eventually making it along the last couple traverses with the prize for Steve of a rope knife from a “deeper than it looks” pool, we made it out and back into the Hall of Thirteen. We took the opportunity we had previously passed on and took some pictures of our own, and shortly round the corner we made it back to camp 1. Time check 2330hrs. Both happy to stop and rest for a moment, we changed into some warm dry clothes and got a brew and some hot food going, this was certainly one of many highlights of the trip, food always tastes amazing when you actually need it.

Rested legs and food partially digested, we got our boots back on and into our suits and got going again. Clock back on, Time 0050hrs. Moving back through the Great rumble heap, around Lac Cadoux and then finally through the Grand gallery, we made it to the entrance series junction. A shortly farewell to the cave we had just spent some life memorable moments in, we left and headed back up Aldo and the other great pitches until reaching the meanders. We were feeling good and surprisingly not as exhausted as we felt after leaving the camp. Before we knew it we were most of the way through and back at the Cairn. retrieving the last bottle, we quickly confirmed we had been hearing voices, but the good kind, and met a trio of cavers heading up the last few pitches. Our suspicions had been high as the deep mumbles and the ever growing smell of cigarettes were telling us we where catching someone. The Trio accompanied us all the way up the last pitches to the surface. 

0500hrs Tuesday Morning, we were out and breathing the fresh air once again. Feeling grateful and now tired, we once again congratulated one another and then got our SRT kits off for comfort for the walk back. We began around early morning hike back to the car park. After 30mins we managed to get hold of a sleepy Tom and arranged for our pick up. Loitering partly asleep, Steve got a brew on and we awaited for the little red car to appear over the brow to take us home. 

G.F Berger 2024 18hrs 30mins