Grotte Saint-Marcel

Ardeche trip – Day 2, Grotte Saint-Marcel

Team A: Damian, Chris

Team B: Tom, Scott, Jasmine, Maz & Will

Thanks to some pre-trip planning, Tom had negotiated with his local contact to collect the keys for various entrances into Grotte Saint-Marcel. This huge system comprises of kilometre after kilometre of huge open passageway filled with formations to stroll along. There are 5 ‘Networks’ in total, and today we worked our way through most of Network 1 with Team A focusing on the horizontal options and Team B doing the same plus a look at the series of SRT pitches that connect Network 1 to Network 4.

The trip started with spirits high, despite yesterday’s ‘warm up’ cave that would easily be granted a Grade 4 difficulty or higher back home. Break them in easy, ey Tom?! From the parking, both teams head for the natural entrance to Saint-Marcel which was a relatively easy 10-15 minute walk downhill to a large natural gated opening in the wood. Once inside, we locked the door behind and a brief 20m stoop opened up immediately to a huge open passageway. Team A quickly sped off, whilst Team B took a more leisurely approach taking in all of the surroundings and comparing the differences to yesterday’s excursion. Maz was immediately satiated as there were bats all over the ceiling and formations, at one point we had to be super careful not to head butt them off the ceiling! The next couple of hours were filled with easy romping down expansive passageways sometimes filled with formations, sometimes not. On occasion, we were guided by a cordon or had to navigate around huge formations and gour pools. We were treated with both filled, flowing and empty gour pools, and some were so deep you’d disappear if you hopped in! It wasn’t too long before things became ‘showcavey’ with concreted walkways, cabling, lights (sadly turned off as currently closed to the public), stairways, etc. We found the showcave entrance, where a huge steel staircase leads to a concreted slope and steps back to the surface. An obvious junction, here both teams made the final onward and exit plans before pressing on with adventures. So far, team A had been leading the way, with team B trailing 50 or so metres behind. We’d all regather when passing formations or obvious areas we felt we must photograph, before moving on. We carried on this them whilst we worked through more passageway, around Boas corner where the passageway takes an obvious 90 degree right hand turn, and if you put yourself in the very outer corner of the bend, you can capture both passageways leading in opposite directions – so we did, with a few cavers for scale!

After more of the same, we saw team A working their way off to the left, but I spotted a short climb up into another huge passageway leading off to the right. So team B opted to explore this first. More huge, expansive and decorated passageway to go at and so we did. We found our way to a lake indicated on the survey as such and could see that up ahead was more, and more, and more of the same. Literally, we could have spent days down there. And this was only Network 1, of 5. Scott and Jasmine were ahead exploring whilst Scott, Maz and myself quickly took a knee and a team meet. We could see from the survey that the way team A went quickly turned vertical with not much else on offer, where as the way we were heading was more of the same horizontal we’d been in for the last 3 and a half hours. We opted to pull back and rejoin team A, in a hope they would continue the exploration we had started, whilst we could have a look at the vertical stuff we’d carried 4 tackle sacks with us for. As expected, we soon found team A retreating from the chasm they had found, but had found our first pitch head for us. Clearly, they were spent and ready to make for their exit, so after we said our goodbyes they set off and Tom and I scrambled the formations in front of us to find said chasm. It certainly didn’t disappoint and the view was immense, more than once I crept to an edge and made it know we certainly had no rope long enough for that way on!

After a little bit of searching through boulders, whilst being directed by Tom, I found the first pitch head and I think it was fair to say I was nominated for rigging. I think the lack of CNCC resin’d anchors didn’t impress the others. I didn’t bring any threads, but after our Estevan-Barbette outing yesterday I did through a couple of spits in my bag, so I quickly knocked up the first ‘Y’ hang with a spit and a dyneema sling (courtesy of Maz) poked through an 8mm thread. I had no idea where I was going, Tom said an 8m ab and then a 15m climb but that was the extent of the description. So I worked my way down through the boulders on rope to where I thought I should be before coming off rope and crawling between boulders, and up a 15m climb as instructed. Convinced I’d nailed it, I came around another huge boulder to find Tom and Maz, at the top of the first pitch waiting for their turn to ab. I relayed my cock up to Scott who was following, and he relayed to Jasmine behind him. Once Jasmine (now in front of me) said off rope, I quickly whipped it back up from behind her and started ab-ing in a different direction over boulders. This time correct! We worked our way through the first pitch, followed by a short scramble to a ledge for the second pitch. This looked way bigger than it actually was, with a slope of flowstone that then dropped to who knows where. Again no anchors to suitably please my partners, so I knocked up another ‘Y’ hang this time fully natural with 2 slings and worked down the slope. I found a loop of rope tied through the flowstone and so opted for a quick re-belay before going over the edge I still couldn’t see the bottom of. Once rigged and passed, the floor was only a few metres away so before long I was down and the rest of the team in tow. We were now stood at the top of steep sloping breakdown in a large chamber with a few exposed edges. We scrambled around the top and then found some in-situ ropes. A 7metre climb to a ‘Y’ hang, pass the ‘Y’ hang onto the next rope up 8m through a deviation to another ‘Y’ hang. Normally no issue, but this one had a number of them! The rope was pretty old and caked in clay like mud, the ‘Y’ hangs didn’t look great and the only one we could see was rigged with someone’s shoe lace. Again, no one seemed keen, so off I went hoping the French use strong shoe laces. Whilst I was only a few metres off the ground, a fall here would of resulted in a 30-40m steep slide down, hitting a lot of hard things on the way. Needless to say I wasn’t moving quickly! Half way up the first rope there was a loud pop from the anchor and I dropped an inch or so, but as I was mid move it made more sense to push up to the ‘Y’ hang where I could see a ledge I could just and so stand on and inspect the anchor further. It didn’t look good, and one of the bolts had moved on me during the pop. It wasn’t possible from here to see the next ‘Y hang as it was obstructed by a shelf about 8 metres above me, but I could see the deviation half way up. I could also see the ridiculous drop to my left that had now come into view, or rather I could see the bottom of it at all. I stuck the next rope in my chest ascender and took in some slack and quickly learned the way on was a swing over this drop and up to the rebelay. The question in my mind now was do I want to do that, on a sh*t rope, on ascenders, with doubt in the anchors and this time no vision at all. Even if I did get up this rope, there was a further 3 pitches ahead before we even entered Network 4, and I wasn’t being followed so that would all have been on me. No chance! I very slowly ab’d down the clay rope back to Tom and Maz, before shouting over the discoveries to Jasmine and Scott. Whilst they worked their way back il the ropes and through the boulder pile, I scrambled down the sloped breakdown to find the huge hole I saw from that ledge above. Another little peek over from the other side and still I couldn’t see the bottom at all and I was now 30-40m lower than my previous viewpoint!

Once we’d all made it back up and Tom had de-rigged, we had a quick snack and kit sort before heading back through everything we’d already come through. Again, head torches were flashing low on battery, and we were all pretty low on battery also – a good job we hadn’t made it through the pitches to Network 4 as we’d still be in there now! Refuelled, we were soon climbing the steel staircase at the bottom to the showcase entrance before hiking up the ramp to the door, which we were praying team A had left open as planned. Keys located, door open, sun in the sky when we surfaced. What a fantastic way to finish day 2! Surely we must return in future years to explore more of these networks?

Write up by Will, photos by Will and Chris (Chris did the better more professional looking ones!)