In the dark night...

A few moments later, our two protagonists joined Brice, and all three chose the blackest coffee possible. 

Brice : Caving has always attracted me and frightened me a bit like a poorly broken black horse. 

Rémi : It's a bit the same for everyone. The fear of the dark, sinking into the bowels of the earth, all this excites the craziest scenarios. Jules Verne, whose imagination sometimes proved to be divinatory, played a part in maintaining the myth of the depths!  

Brice : So you haven't found the entrance to a parallel world? 

Silvan : We are not looking for it and we can assure you that it does not exist. On the other hand, the environment of the cavities, this world of tunnels, rooms, wells, is a place apart. We enter it through a fault, a well, a collapse, a natural door, like an open mouth ready to swallow us up... 

Brice :AAAAAAAAAHH! Sorry, I always project myself a lot. That makes me think, how do you get started on these hellish descents? 

Rémi : We have a whole range of equipment, which could also be confused with climbing equipment. But in climbing we have ropes for shock, for us they are made for progress. In the end we go down very easily. Then, as strange as it may seem, you have to go back up. Don't panic, the rope system we use allows you to climb with minimal effort. We're not going to tell you that we don't get tired, quite the contrary, but this is mainly due to concentration and careful calculations of gestures. 

Brice : Sharp as a blade, sharp as a knife!… 

Silvan : Yes, you have to be optimised, a question of comfort and above all safety. With the current equipment, during our outings, we went from 7 to 3 hours. More rarely we take the pleasure of staying sleeping underground, more frequently we stay there at least to eat. 

Brice : There is a restaurant trend in the dark, but they hadn't invented anything... 

Rémi : Once we sink into this world, we leave the surface and our daily life like the snap of a finger. Getting used to this total abandonment takes hold of you quickly. We move partly in the dark, between rocks, underground water, and sometimes narrow tunnels. Nothing is like what we experience every day, psychologically it is also pure pleasure! 

Brice : A harmless, damp, dark drug…. Hmmm…. Caviar!!!! 

Silvan : No caving, too bad, you were almost there. 

Brice : Let's come back to your club, how many members do you have? and level of diversity, straight away? 

Silvan : We have fluctuated between 10 and 15 members since our creation. And we can display an honest 25/30% of women, many occupying leadership positions if we extend to the world of caving. 

Brice : So all these beautiful people run off Batman style, finding themselves in a hostile environment, seen from the outside, which ultimately turns out to be a dark paradise. What do you do there? Apart from pure sporting progression. 

Rémi : One of our activities is scientific and consists of the topography of the galleries. One or one of our club will be responsible for noting, drawing, measuring, recently aided by the rangefinder. This tool revolutionizes readings, and offers ease and precision in record time! If you want to explore the subject further, go to the Tourist Office to consult the book “Speleology in Gascony”. You will discover the results of the explorations carried out in the Gers. 

Brice : And children, they are afraid of the dark, caving is “redflag” suddenly? 

Rémi : Precisely since 2022 we have had a departmental agreement with national education. So we intervene in primary schools, following work to raise awareness of the practice carried out upstream by the teachers. Then it's the red carpet for us, we just have to make people dream with our stories from the world below. Secondly, we lead field trips.  

Rémi : With a small body, small passages become large, it’s fluid mechanics… 

Silvan : We don't really have this kind of objective. It's fun and easy discovery, no danger, just fun. 

Brice : And the adults who would like to learn, what do we do with them? 

Silvan : Our club is open to everyone, just contact us. If you have your federation license, there it is whenever you want on each of our outings. If unfortunately you have inadvertently not subscribed to the federation, we will make arrangements, according to our program we will see if the next outing is accessible to you (we are not promising you anything there). In any case, doing an initiation is within our ropes. 

Brice : Is it a first name Initiation?! 

Silvan : Always not. The principle is simple, it’s about discovering an activity without commitment. We carry out this type of action, particularly for National Caving Day which is systematically held on the first weekend in October. Come, you will not be disappointed, we take advantage of this to give access to unusual places.  

Brice : I love the unusual, I only live for great, special moments. These fragile but unique moments where life reminds us of its omnipotence. Experience is at the heart of everything, we live for it and we run after it. She is salt and we are tasteless, let's get up! 

Rémi : We have achieved the incredible paradox of getting up while going down! During our outings on average it is 200m underground, 350m max beyond that requires completely different preparation, it is said that the 400m mark induces a much greater difficulty.  

Silvan : Today we are indeed staying on descents which do not exceed 350m, except for experienced cavers. Otherwise we are moving more and more towards micro-stays of 4,5 days. Camps where we go on a daily outing and in the evening it's feedback and a slice of bacon or vegetables, depending on the diet. 

Brice (suddenly disguised as a bat) : Do you like us? 

Rémi and Sylvain : Yes a lot, besides we respect your hibernation periods (between November and March). Here we must be vigilant, because our body temperature, to which they are sensitive, would make them go out thinking that the season is getting milder. 

Brice (particularly flexible) : Are you snakes? 

Rémi and Sylvain : We avoid disturbing them and limit our outings in winter. We come across other “babies”, spiders, salamanders, small molluscs. Once you reach a certain depth, life becomes rarer and you find yourself alone with the rock and Gaia. 

Brice : The idea of ​​probing the superficial depths of our planet, and searching for the exit which was the entrance a few hours ago. Eating blind and pretending to be Batman. There are a lot of childhood dreams there. Count on me for the National Caving Days!  

Our three friends of the day took their leave of each other. Brice closed the shutters and turned off the work lights to try to write this article in sporting conditions, what a potential Mike Horn! 

To discover the underground world in the open air, follow the Karst path. An 8km hiking route with surprising evidence of underground activity. Best of all, arm yourself with the brochure on sale at the OT (€2) to know and understand everything.