Vercors Week: Day 4 – Grotte de Gournier

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

This trip had had its fair share of planning effort too, and we parked up at the Choranche show cave fully equipped with a 2 person inflatable, a high capacity pump, half a paddle and…some 1mm jute twine.

We inflated our boat at the car and awkwardly wound through the ticket office and onto the path skirting the combe towards the Gournier entrance. As usual, we enjoyed the curious stares of onlookers as we fannied around trying to find a way that our twine wouldn’t just snap instantly, and would be haulable from both sides. I’m not entirely sure what system was constructed in the end, I enjoyed just being cargo.

At the far side of the entrance lake, a couple of staples and a polished climb led up via 4 rigged ropes, to a wide shelf and the start of a traverse through a high-level eyehole that marked the beginning of the fossil series. We made a bit of an error in assuming that at least one of those ropes was in-situ, and failed to rig our own (if the ancient bolts would even have fitted one more set of rigging on?). We’d also made an error in judgement by convincing ourselves that only cowstails were needed on this trip, for traverses. By the time we’d bumbled up the staples and ropes using them as handlines, most of us already regretted the decision not to carry full SRT kits, and vowed we’d always take a full kit or no kit in future.

But that was a problem for later KCC, because right now we were stomping along the high-level fossil series enjoying the increasingly stunning formations, with tons of photo opportunities. We eventually reached the beautiful gour pools and flowstone of the Salle des Fontaines. After a while admiring it, John and Miranda decided to make their way out, and the rest of us pressed on to the first access point down to the active streamway, after a quick snack break.

As we reached the streamway we immediately realised it was something special. We were all excitedly bounding our way upstream, through pools, around traverses trying to keep dry, before Steve canonballed into a deep pool sending water over everyone and we embraced the canyon-like nature of this part of the trip. Many of us had decided this was our new favourite streamway

Eventually reaching a stapled traverse above a deep pool, we ditched some gear and headed upwards. Once again another deep pool opened in front of us, with the only option now to swim round the corner. Jason and Yolanda were already getting chilly so started making their way slowly back. We leapt into the piscine, around the corner and on to a rising stapled route avoiding a cascade. At the top, as more deep water revealed itself, enthusiasm began to wane and people began turning back to catch up with Jason and Yolanda. Eventually we were all heading back out, and after winding back up the access funnel and refuelling, we stomped quickly for the exit.

As we reached the traverse, we caught another group up. They were the final ones exiting the cave other than us, and were de-rigging…the last remaining ‘in-situ’ traverse line. Thankfully, Scott and Connor had brought a 25m out of sheer forethought, and we re-rigged it behind the Belgian team, shuffled our way across to the ledge and de-rigged behind ourselves, ready to re-rig it for the descent to the boats on various Piranas/Fig 8s.

John and Miranda, on their way out, had befriended some lads from the Shepton Mallet, and they’d kindly offered to swim our boat back into the porch after John and Miranda had made their exit. So we were quite surprised to find it sat waiting for us, all moored up. We tried to rig a system with our slightly-too-short-for-the-job rope, involved Steve dangling on a tiny ledge halfway out of the lake. Two by two we made our way back across, ready to pack up, deflate, and wander back to the empty car park for a late evening finish, a drive back up the gorge to our waiting pizzas etc. polishing off a lovely day.