8/3/2019 Gouffre Berger

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Gouffre Berger, Petzl team follows in the footsteps of Fernand Petzl

From August 1-6, 2011, climbers and alpinists from Team Petzl were introduced tocaving in theGouffre Berger cave, which descends to -1100m. Team Petzl member andorganizer of the expedition, Franois Lombard, tells the story.

"Caving has a long history for Petzl. In the 1950s, Fernand Petzl played a veryimportant role in opening numerous caves in the Vercors region of France, designingand producing equipment that enabled him to make these incredible discoveries. In1955, he was a part of the legendary team that first reached a record breaking -1000meters at Gouffre Berger.

To retrace his steps, Phil Bence, an active caver and member of Team Petzl, along withFlorence Guillot and Guillaume Capgras and in collaboration with their club fromFrance's Arige region, SSAPO Arige, asked us to organize a "Team Petzl meeting at

the Gouffre Berger.

The goal was to follow the footsteps of Fernand 50 years later. So we formed a "dream

team" that included Tony Lamiche, Charlotte Durif, Marion Poitevin, Jrome Meyer,

Mlissa Le Nev, Mickal Fuselier, Nina Caprez and Daniel Dulac. Guillaume Broust,

Bruno Fromento and Serge Caillault were also recruited to shoot photos and video. The

trip would be a learning experience for some and a chance for others to take the next

step.

Base camp was established from August 1 6 at Lans in Vercors. After a long day of

technical calibration, a first descent to -500 meters was made with two objectives: to

make sure everyone was comfortable underground and to take some amazing photos.

With success of this first step, the team's attention would now be focused on the full

exploration down to -1122m.

On Thursday, August 4 at 1:00 p.m., we head underground and quickly descend thepart that our team had already covered. At -600 meters we meet Cdric Lachat and hisfriend Vincent Franzi who had come long to explore new galleries and to give us ahand. At 9:00 p.m. we reached the siphon at -1122 meters and a bottle of Mouton-Cadet 2008 is opened to celebrate the event (thanks to Daniel Dulac)! From there webegan the long trip back up, recovering our gear along the way. We reached the surfaceabout 20 hours later.

What we got from this amazing adventure, along with the scenery and the incredibleexperience, is the feeling of walking in the footsteps of the first explorers. But above allwas the sharing of ethics and motivations between different disciplines."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouffre_Bergerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouffre_Berger