Trou du Glaz to Grotte
Annette
August 2011. Mike
Hale (Slug) Tim & Heather Eastwood, Jim Davis, Paul , Bill Nix, Andy Hall.
Ever since reading Subterranean Climbers by Pierre Chevalier
in the early part of my caving career in the 1970’s I had wanted to visit the
Dent de Croll system. This "Dent" contains
over 50 kilometres of passages and pitches and has
been continually been explored on several sections since the 1930’s and has a
vertical range of 673 meters. Eight entrances allow you to get into this
labyrinth. I was particularly keen to do
the through trip from Trou du Glaz
to Grotte Annette, which takes you under the Dent de Crolles massif from one side to the other. When the club
decided to organise a summer 2011 caving holiday, I
suggested the Chartreuse area as I had passed by on a number of occasions on
the way to the Berger, the Alps and Vercors and had
heard from a number of cavers over the years what a fine caving area it was.Heather agreed to organise
the campsite, insurance etc and thanksshould go to
her for drumming up support for the whole event and to various cavers who
supplied surveys and descriptions of the system. The club caving holiday got a
good deal of support from a large number of members and friends. A few weeks
before we set off I was looking through the latest copy of Descent when I
spotted an article about the surface route back from Grotte
Annette, which seemed to indicate that the route was blocked by a recent
landslide and would be too dangerous to attempt. Jonny
Braindead came back from a trip to the Petzl factory nearby on the
When we first arrived in the area various groups did
several other trips in the Dent de Crolles system
including through trip from Trou du
Glaz to Guiers Mort via Galerie des Champignons where unfortunately Ray Duffy broke
his ankle and self rescued from the cave, but that is another story. We tried
to make various enquiries about the state of the path from Trou
du Glaz to Annette but
without much success. Slug had been before some years before so on misty day at
the end of July we set off with Bill Nix for a recce
trip to find if the route was open and locate the entrances to Grotte Annette and Grotte Chavalier as they are close together under the cliffs below
the Dent de Crolles summit. We ascended under the
south face of the cliffs across a scree slope that Slug said he remembered and
found a path leading below the cliffs. It was difficult to tell if we were at
the right level in the mist so after splitting up followed by much shouting and
faffing about we located a loose section of traverse
with a recent rock fall followed by a newly installed fixed tope traverse.
“This must be the way”. We little realised what a spectacular route this is as
the mist blotted out the view and the exposed drops. We carried on pleased that
we had found the route to be open and the information we had been given to be
false. We continued traversing for some time around the east face of the
mountain. It was difficult to see where we were due to all the mist! Eventually
we decided to look at the map and realised we had gone too far north along the
scree slopes. We made our way back several hundred metres and staggered up a
loose scree slope to find a large cave entrance with an equally large draft – Grotte Chevalier. Annette lies a hundred metres to the
south at the same level. After we had located both we had a quick trip for
several hundred metres into Chevalier as it is a large passage boring under the
mountain for over a kilometre and well worth a trip.
You only need a lamp and helmet to do most of it.
A few
days later after a reasonably early start we assembled at the car park at Col du Coq and set off for the steep walk up to Trou du Glaz.
Forty minutes later we arrived hot and bothered at the large entrance with its
cold outward draft, a place to cool off and get changed. We set off quickly
through the entrance series as we had all been through this section before,
even so a few of us, me included still managed to go the wrong way at one
junction. We all assembled at the first of the three Lantern Pitches (10, 12
and 13 metres) and smoothly descended on tackle already in place. From here a
stooping passage gradually enlarges to the top of Puit
Lantern 4 (10m). This quickly leads to the top of P36 through a window step up
and the way on to Guiers Mort .
We did not need to descend this on this occasion but a traverse on an in-situ
fixed rope around a deep black hole leads to the way on. I only had a small wobbler here, much to people’s amusement! After this was a
mud slope and passage to a traverse with fixed rope around another black hole Puit du Lac. A large passage
continues with a trench in the floor and we knew we were on the right route
following the large red paint spots on the walls. A right turn at a junction,
again well marked leads to Puit Ferdinand a 35 metre
pitch with a nice big chain at the top for your pull through rope. Quite a bit
of faffing here while the pitch was rigged gave me
time for a few photos and a drink. Helen was starting to complain a bout the
large split in the arse of her suit; not a pretty site! The pitch was a
straightforward abseil with a ledge about half way down. As we were quite a
large party there was time for some more photos at the bottom.
We set
off from here along a passage that started to get smaller than the big stamping
stuff we had got used to. A long rising traverse in a tall rift passage, Gallerie de Sud, again equipped
with a fixed rope for protection was the next obstacle. The rope is well placed
making the long step over one or two deep black holes less daunting. I was glad
to be in front of Heather at this point, as the split in her suit must only be
getting bigger. Red spots on the rock showed that we were still on the right
track. More milling about in a series of smaller
We
stopped to check our copy of the survey here, as the way on was not clear. A
decision was made and we set off and soon reached Puit
de la Vire. This is an initial traverse on the left
wall over a pit, which then goes to a swing over and prussic up an overhang
(10m). I found the step off at the top a bit awkward and got a suitable amount
of stick from the others, who all had a grandstand view of my antics! We
stopped again for a brief rest and food stop while people packed away their SRT
gear and then it was on again along a fine, well decorated tunnel, Gallerie 43, named after the year of its discovery. More
photos were taken here. There are several junctions but the way on is well
marked and well worn.
Before
long we reach Puit de la Gnole,
the final 75 metre abseil down to Grotte Annette.
This is a large open shaft with an easy take off on the right hand wall It took a while to rig the pitch safely for a pull through
and to get us all down.
At the
bottom a left turn down through boulders leads to a bit of tat hand line over a
sloping block into the bottom of a large aven. From here the way is well marked
mainly by the big draft. It goes up and down over slippy climbs and narrower
passage and the odd boulder pile. It did seem to take longer than I was
expecting – probably about half an hour to reach the end and we did go the
wrong way once or twice. The tackle bags slowed us down a bit. Eventually a
larger choke is reached and the way on is fairly clear here. It soon became
obvious that it was the way as we came across the wall of Armco barriers that
hold up the wall of the choke, as it has collapsed several times. We now new that we were only a short distance from the entrance.
In fact round the next corner you can see daylight shining down the entrance
slope.
We climbed up through the choke
held up with Armco barriers to immerge in the entrance passage with a short
ramp of boulders to the entrance. A magnificent site awaited us with a
spectacular view down to the
It took us about 6
hours crossing Trou du Glaz to
Andy
Hall
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