The first place that we visited was the canyon of the Verdon river. We enjoyed excellent views and the squeezed and folded layers of rock that made up the canyon's rim as well as the surrounding hills gave us a good lesson of geology. We could clearly see that even a thin layer of limestone that was pushed into a vertical position can give good conditions for forming the deepest caves in the world.

And the vertical walls several hundred meters high... - I begin to regret that I didn't invest more time into climbing. :)

The next two days we spent in Ardeche - we wanted to see what's there.

The canyon is pretty nice, but a lot smaller than Verdon. And in general, the French have a whole bunch of these mountains and canyons. And caves, too... For instance in the side of the Ardeche Canyon there's the Grotte de Saint-Marcel - this one we visited with a guide.

One thing: one flash bulb doesn't compare at all with good light from several lamps. Since you can take pictures in this cave I could compare the two types of illumination. This almost convinced me to stop playing photographer...

And another thing: the cave is quite nice (but they show you maybe several hundred meters of a caves that has over 45 km of passages) with pretty formations, etc. But the main passage, colorful and sculptured by water is phenomenal. The calcite bowls were also very nice. This cave is really worth a visit, even with a guide. :)

A trip with the Knibbs into the Arbas massif with one of the longest caves in the world - Reseau Felix Trombe / Henne-Morte (at the time of this writing it occupied the 13th place with a length of almost 106 km, 46 entrances, and almost a kilometer deep). We looked at several entrances, so that we would have no problems finding them in the future. :)

At last, a serious trip to a serious cave!

This is the lowest entrance to the system that can be found in a beautiful gorge, surrounded by a humid and very green forest.

The entrance is several minutes from the parking lot. This was our first cave on this trip, so we treated it as a warm-up. Thus, we didn't prepare for a trip as we should have - I didn't read through the description very carefully and I missed the part about the rope by the first sump. Since water filled the whole passage and we had no gear, we ended this short trip staring at water...

The cave is quite similar to the Polish cave Kasprowa Niznia, but you could hear falling water just behind the sump. Besides that, nothing new or very interesting...

One of the numerous entrances to the system - a half-hour walk from the main parking lot near the Fontaine de l'Ours (Bear Fountain).

It starts with pitches R4, P12, R4, P15, and P30... rigging mainly from spits, but there were a couple of fixed bolts. Pitches... like pitches. Next, some passages, a chamber and a large passage that leads to the big chamber Trou du Vent.

On the way down to the TDV chamber, the underground rain got louder and louder. At first we though that we're just getting nearer the waterfall, but it turned out that the rain is getting heavier. And next to the first waterfall another one appeared. Yeah, it was raining outside...

So, instead of climbing out through dry pitches, we had to struggle now in cold water. Luckily, the entrance is above the gorge's bottom in the side of a rock so we didn't get as much water as we could have. So the exit was wet, but not that much.

A very nice and relaxing horizontal cave. A traverse is possible and / or a circle.

The West part of the cave consists of two largish chambers (with assorted formations, even with pretty big helictites). Next the cave changes into a long, very wide and not very tight crawl. It's hard to describe the feeling, but it was a bit eerie to see these lonely, thick calcite columns in a tomb like passage...

The crawl exits into a small chamber (a very nice stalagmite with helictites). Here you can turn left in the direction of the second entrance or go right. More crawling until you reach the active part of the cave with a stream carving a very deep ravine. By following the stream you can make a round trip to the first entrance.

The description of the approach seemed pretty clear (although in French), but without the help of a person from the nearby village we probably wouldn't find the whole - the forest is very tangled and prickly. But this very nice gentleman dropped off his grandchild and went with us; still, it took us almost an hour to find the cave. So, if it took so long for a local to find it, what would have we done without any help?

The first part of the cave is a series of pitches that, unfortunately, are filled with rubble. A moved stone falls to the very bottom. Thus, we decided to go down (and later up) singly. Even then, when I was waiting at the bottom hidden from falling rocks, one managed to hit me in the leg...

At the bottom, after another short pitch, you enter an underground river. It can be followed upstream or downstream for several hundred meters (over a kilometer in total).

Nicely formed passage, small lakes, waterfalls, etc. - a very nice trip. There were deep cracks only several centimeters wide that still managed to swallow up the whole stream. Some of the lakes looked pretty deep, too. We found rocks sculptured in very intricate ways, a lot of them were very sharp. And in one of the side passages we even found some stalactites and helictites.

A cave worth visiting!

There are two entrances to this cave - both pitches - one at one of the ends (Trou du Vent, P17), and one in the middle (P25). The map showed the approach to the first pitch so we went down into the cave through that. Again rigging was from spits (and natural points), and the approach itself was easy.

The cave is very nice and easy (except for the pitches). From the very beginning and through its whole length you can see numerous formations (such as the Snow Chamber), so a trip that theoretically should take about an hour or two took us something like four (sightseeing, pictures)... :)

(Easy to get to, easy to find - in the side of a largish doline. After a short passage there are two small pitches ((P9 and P8), next an easy climb down (R2) - not much space, but not too tight, either. (Next, a pitch (P15) leads down into the main, and pretty big, chamber. As usual, rigging is from spits.

(The first chamber is mildly interesting, with a lot of rubble, a small lake and some formations. (The second chamber looked pretty much the same and we were on the way out when I decided to go up the calcitefall (and see what's on top of it. Well, it got interesting then! - the next hour, maybe even more, (we spent on looking and shooting (pictures, that is).

(This cave and the previous one (Trou du Vent du Pedrou) can be easily visited on a single day ((if you don't start in the afternoon!)...