Spelunking(-ish)

We woke up at 7 to an amazing view and saw the sun rising while we made our coffee and breakfast. After quickly getting ready we started our walk down the mountain to Le Jardin d’Endieu where we were going to climb. It was a 45 minute walk up following part of the trail we were parked next to. The forest we walked through was absolutely majestic and the views kept getting better. Eventually we arrived at the foot of the rock face and we unpacked and untangled all of our gear after picking a suitable route. We started on a 4c but soon discovered that the routes were bolted traditionally and not by “modern” standards. This is not necessarily a safety issue, but when routes are bolted traditionally it happens that there is a lot more distance between bolts than when they are bolted by “modern” standards. Since we are beginners this feels kind of sketchy and climbing the slabby 4c that’s sparsely bolted doesn’t necessarily feel secure. After finishing this 4c, which we did both top, we moved to a route to the right. Turns out we counted wrong in the Topo and accidentally started a 6b. Julian slowly got up, by using an arrêt that wasn’t part of the route and sometimes helping himself by lifting himself up by the rope or quick draws. He installed a top-rope and I tried climbing it but failed miserably. Julian tried to top it using the intended beta but still had to use the rope and the arrêt a bit. He cleaned the route and we headed back up towards Limão.

When we arrived at the van the home battery had died so sadly we had to move away from the amazing spot we slept. We packed up and faced the rocky path back to the main road where we drove to the town called Banne. Here a municipal camping-car park has a Euro-Relais station with fresh water and electricity, but the tokens could only be bought at the town hall which closes before noon so we had to wait with charging till the next morning. The rest of the day we just chilled for a bit and walked around town to see where we were.

This morning we headed to town hall to buy a token for the electricity and charged the home battery along with our laptops and other things. After we charged everything we headed to town hall again to see if they had a bathroom available. While we were walking around the building an employee saw us and asked if we needed anything, he let us in and pointed us in the right direction. The back of the building had a banquet hall which surprised us and there was a very strange vibe, but it was also the cleanest toilet we used in weeks. Afterwards we started our drive towards Beaume Escure. The topo book we have of the Ardèche also shows parkings near the different sections so we decided to drive to one of those. Somehow we had to drive through all kinds of gravel roads. We also drove through some different towns, but only through the smallest alleys and got lost like 6 times. Eventually, we reached Berrias-et-Casteljau where Julian got a call from his mom and we tried to navigate through the small town with narrow streets and alleys while managing a phone call on speakerphone. Somehow, we drove away from the town again and had to try again, at this point we had to promise Julian’s mom we would call back as we had to focus on the road right now. Google Maps showed an alternative route and we tried focusing on the signs as well which eventually got us in the right direction. Here we got sent onto a campsite, but we found a parking (technically part of the campsite and their canoe rental) but we asked politely and we were allowed to stay there. We made lunch and headed out to the caves of Beaume Escure.

Arriving at the climbing site we chose to go to cave 2, soley because this looked really, really cool. The first route we tried, a 5a with a big traversal in the middle of the cave, was nice experience. We both topped it and I cleaned the route so we could try another one. We went to try another route, a 5c, but this turned out to be sparsely bolted and way more difficult than we thought. After a few tries Julian got up to an anchor next to the route just over halfway and decided to install a top-rope so we could give it a few more tries. I couldn’t even get halfway and eventually Julian got tired so he went up and cleaned the route. We tried another one outside but this was also sparsely bolted so we didn’t feel comfortable trying again. We packed up and checked out the other cave to see if it would be interesting to turn back the next day.

The way back to the van we took a different path than the way towards the caves. The way to the caves we walked along the water, which was quite adventurous as the path had been overgrown at some places. The way back we walked through an abandoned section of the campsite, the caravans had been abandoned but not cleaned out. It felt a bit sketchy to walk through, except for the path that it was quite a busy path and clearly part of the campsite. We arrived back at the van and drove back up to the 4×4 spot we had slept before.

The next day we headed back to Berrias-et-Casteljau and climbed in the first cave. We climbed all routes below 5b that looked remotely interesting so at the end of the day we were super tired. It had luckily cooled off a bit so we started our drive towards Montpellier. We had chosen a few options to sleep at night, one of which quite a bit before Montpellier, an actual municipal camping-car park. There was one other camper there, of course from The Netherlands. But there was no bathroom and like a million mosquitoes. This didn’t feel good so we drove further to the city where we could sleep on different spots within the woods. We saw a family of 5 having dinner and parked a bit behind them. It was a peaceful forest and after we had dinner we fell asleep as tomorrow we were going to Ikea to work.