Vercors, France - Mon-Tues, 25-26 August 2008,

On Monday, Paul and I drove to Pont-en-Royans at the southern, downstream end of the Bourne Gorge. Unfortunately the actual gorge was closed due to road works, but there was an alternative route that took us over the tops to Pont-en-Royans. Built on the very side of the gorge the village perches right over the river in a very dramatic setting. We stopped for coffee and then headed on to our destination, a gear shop called Expe, where Paul had agreed to collect some bolts for Ralph Johnson.
















By Tuesday morning, Keith was sporting a full-on head cold and looking and sounding more than a bit rough. We had breakfast and Keith and Pete disappeared in search of in-soles for Pete's wellies as he'd left his in England. I was ready to leave when Paul decided that he really didn't feel up to going, so I cadged a lift with Boyd. Neither of us was planning to go very far, probably as far as Puis Aldos, the last big pitch before the Great Rubble Heap, but Keith and Pete planned to go to the Hall of Thirteen, a drop of something like 500m (too far for me after two months of little or no caving).

Boyd and I arrived well before out allotted time of entry and Keith and Pete weren't far behind. We sat and ate and drank in the atmosphere before kitting up and heading underground. The 'boys' disappeared fairly quickly leaving Boyd and myself to take it a bit steadier. The Meanders, which I'd heard more than a few horror stories about, weren't as bad as I expected, I'm sure I've done worse in OFD and not clipped into a traverse line. We reached our destination in fairly good time, having made steady progress and decided that that was far enough.

In hindsight, I think we should possibly have bitten the bullet and descended that final 50m pitch and explored a little further because some of Keith's photos of the columns only a little further on are wonderful, but we headed for the surface.

Unfortunately at that point we caught up with a French group of four and then three groups coming in, one of which was Jules Barrett and Martin from the Eldon and friends. We waited while fourteen people descended and then the four French people went up - they were pretty slow and we waited over an hour and got very cold. In an effort to move quicker, we overtook them on the next big pitch, where there were two ropes, but I wonder whether we did the right thing because by the time we reached the 27m entrance pitch we were both completely knackered!!! And then we had nearly 2 miles to walk up hill back to Boyd's van.