Vercors Week: Day 7 – Grotte de Bournillon

Connor, Scott, Tom

The rest had been up at the crack of dawn to get their hire car back before their flight, but with most of the cleaning done last night there wasn’t too much for the three of us to do – mostly bagging up leftovers (must plan better next time). 

We checked out and headed down to the Bourne Gorge once again to park up next to the EDF station and the start of the steep walk up into the picturesque Jurassic Park combe, complete with its 360m waterfall ab dominating the valley. We were glad of the shade of the humongous porch of the cave, and all felt dizzy trying to look up, or even in front of us to figure out the scale of the footbridge and bystanders in the entrance up ahead.

We leapt over the barrier at the end of the bridge, and made the traverse around a very deep lake. There are decent bolts here in case it were ever used for a novice trip in future. Through the eyehole network we went to emerge into the huge proportions of the entrance area. This was a knackering scramble up huge boulders, and we were already sweating profusely from the 36 degree temperatures outside. The roof closed down a little as we got to the top of the rubble pile, and the cave continued as rock-hopping at a high level for most of the rest of the way.

Some nice stals and bosses in the Village Negre broke up what was a bit of a monotonous trip. At the end, the siphon temporaire seemed to be closed, leaving us not much in the way of options but to make our way back out. Maybe we’d been spoiled by the other caves this week, but the entrance area is certainly worth seeing alone.

After getting back down to the car and changing, it was down to the plains for a supermarket stock-up – it was non-stop through to Staveley from here. With only really a petrol stop on the way up France, we once again made good time up France through the power of energy drinks and some minor medication, and managed to get on an earlier train. Other than part of the M25 being closed, Scott chugged us back through the endless average speed zones and back to the familiarity of our tiny part of the caving world.