Gouffre Berger

Jon Riley

We camped at La Molliere, known to the French as the ‘British Camp’. It is a field filled with a herd of wandering cows, each aimed with a bell. On a clear day it has a wonderful view of the Barre des Ecrins and its surrounding Alpine peaks. It is situated about forty minutes away from the entrance of this famous cave. On our first trip underground both Graham Salmon and I were excited and uncertain about the nature of the cave.

The entrance is much like a Yorkshire pot hole except that it is surrounded by trees and the sun was shining! Upon leaving the daylight behind you find yourself straddling a rotting wooden platform. This leads into four abseils descending finally into Cairn Hall, a memorable vertical shaft with white walls and a large cairn which serves as a memorial to a British caver. The scale was large, but I didn’t think it was that big and we wondered what the all fuss was about.

Upon leaving Cairn Hall, we entered the Meanders. This was a long, narrow rift with wooden stemples which acted as foot holds, and a wire traverse to prevent you slipping into the darkness below. Both of these made carrying tackle bags a real pain. One more abseil led to the final section of the Meanders and the head of the famous Aldo’s pitch. Graham descended first and disappeared underneath a boulder. I followed him closely, down the pitch and as I crawled under the boulder Graham called “Eh up Jon, you’ll like this!”

We were standing in the Canyon of the Starless River. It was huge. We were completely surrounded by darkness. The only way of describing the feeling is that it was like standing outside, at night, with no moon or starlight and just the echo of our own voices and the river to remind us that we were underground.

We picked our way over boulders whilst discussing how amazing it was and before we realised it we had reached Lake Cadoux. The lake was completely empty, leaving only a muddy oval to mark its existence. We squelched across it and arrived at the head of The Little General pitch, a step of a twenty-five foot high boulder, followed shortly by the Tyrolean pitch which was free climbable because it was so dry.

A short walk from the pitch led to the head of Great Rubble Heap. The name is most apt. We scrambled and walked down this huge pile of boulders following cairns; and markers, occasionally losing sight of one another, downhill for half an hour to reach camp one. We turned around and left the cave feeling excited about what was to come.

Several days later we found ourselves back at camp one with another member of the expedition, Joel Corrigan, and enough gear to rig the cave to the first sump. We set up camp and slept then at about seven in the morning we set off with the intention of reaching the bottom of the cave.

We passed the magnificent Hall of Thirteen, the gigantic white stalagmites growing clearer as we got closer. We picked our way through the maze of aquamarine gour pools until we stood beneath the formations craning our necks to be able to take in the size of them. Further down into the cave a short abseil led on to a huge calcite flowstone which we downclimbed to more dramatic formations. Among them a chamber filled with stalagmite bosses and rocks covered with white flowstone. In the middle of this enchanting scene was a cylindrical spout in the roof issuing a constant, heavy stream of water onto the rock below where it had created a perfectly round solution pool about three feet deep. We were impressed!

We followed the water for a short while, climbing over and around formations, up another calcite slope to a sort of col and down the far side to a small gap in the wall and the start of the Vestibule pitch. This was essentially a free climb protected by a rope rigged on natural stals and calcite threads. The bottom of the pitch marked the start of the Canals. We traversed above the ice cold blue-green water using frayed ropes and wire for assistance until at one point it was necessary to swing across the water ‘monkey style’. When it came to Joel’s turn he reached out halfway and, weighed down by his three enormous bags, slowly slipped into the canal. This incident, plus a few other water bound accidents, earned him the nickname ‘Aquaman’.

The canals went over a series of short cascades and tyroleans. We were pleased to be using gear and leaving bags as we went since it lightened our loads. However there was a problem. It appeared that we had already used a rope intended for Topographers cascade. We frantically checked the bags to discover that we had a one-hundred metre rope that we had not used due to a fixed rope being in place. We rigged the pitch from underneath an enormous metal bar left from the days of ladder rigging. As we abseiled under it we kept a wary eye on it. Climbing down the vast muddy boulder slope of the Grand Canyon we were all too aware of the black void to our left. A final series of pitches followed in quick succession, rigged from poor bolts set in rotten black limestone.

The noise of water was beginning to get annoying so we all donned balaclavas to supress it. This meant that we spoke very little and were each absorbed in our own small pools of light, grimly determined to reach the bottom, working well as a team. I free climbed out of the infamous Little Monkey pitch and rigged my rope off two bolts. I abseiled into the tube below. It wasn’t vertical and the water being sprayed about extinguished my carbide light and covered my glasses with water. I was completely disorientated and unable to see how much rope I had left. Slowly, I felt my way backwards into the darkness and out of the water.

Upon re-lighting my lamp I saw that I was at the head of the final Hurricane pitch. With the last bolt we rigged it and abseiled to find out how it earned its name. Wind sprayed the water in all directions, the high chamber filled with deafening noise. We carried on climbing over boulders and traversing water. Passing the Thousand Metre Inlet to arrive at the first sump. We took pictures and congratulated one another. Already tired we faced a five hour return trip to get back to the comfort of our sleeping bags. After eighteen hours on the go, we slept well.