Gourneyrou 2013 End of Line
Participants: Benjamin Beier, Anke Löbel, Florian Hang, Oliver Kurtz, Wilke Reints, Tobias Ziegler, Marc Grosse, Andreas Voigt, Guy Berg, Darko Petkovic
Fotos: Guy, Anke, Benjamin, Florian, Wilke, besondere Dank geht an Vladimir Mika Vujasinovic für die Bereitstellung der Kommunikationseinheiten
A report from Team Cavebase
It is not really long ago that we paid a visit to the Gourneyrou. Last year, almost at the same time of the year, Carsten and Tobias tried to reach the end of this quite challenging cave. Last year the dive of Carsten and Tobias ended at the 2nd bend. So it was clear that the Cavebase still has an open bill to settle here.
This year Cavebase has set the goal to dive this cave to the end. The Push Team consisted of Tobias and Wilke. The team chances to reach the end were very good this time. Tobias already knew the cave from the previous year and Tobias and Wilke have been a well-rehearsed buddy team for years anyway. In addition, we had many experienced Gourneyrou divers with us. Andreas, Marc, Darko, Florian and Oliver already knew the area from the last excursions. For our guests, Anke, Benjamin and Guy, the environment was new, but diving-wise all guests were already on a high level.
In addition to the diving demands, the environment of Gourneyrou also presents a considerable challenge. The terrain is very rough, the cave pool is almost 70 meters lower than the last accessible path. Every single piece of equipment has to be transported to the cave pool by cable car - and that's a good 2 tons of weight!
While in the last years especially the topic "material transport via ropeway" took a lot of time, this year we used a ropeway construction especially made for the project. Wilke's father had the situation described to him on site and, based on the stories and video recordings, built an improved mid-station together with Darko - this year, for the first time, we didn't have to rehang the transport buoy at the mid-station - but could go through in one. The time saving was enormous!
First day:
On Saturday evening, all members arrived at the camp after arriving for varying lengths of time. After setting up the tent, the guests were welcomed and briefly introduced to the upcoming days and their rough course. Darko, our project leader, had already instructed all participants in advance, but immediately on site many things have to be discussed in greater detail.
The camp itself was set up very quickly this time, digging latrines, putting up sun tarps and rain protection, collecting firewood, setting up tents, ensuring power supply and setting up the "washing up place for dishes" went smoothly and at the same time in record time. Around 10:00 p.m. the first participants already said goodbye. The goal for the first day of the project was to set up a ropeway and transport the equipment to the cave pool. Sounds simple, but it was quite a challenge. The mountain, middle and valley stations were manned with "personnel" and each station had the task of attaching the parts of the ropeway that were relevant for that location. Florian, Andreas and Guy took care of the bottom station; Benjamin, Oliver, Marc and Wilke took care of the middle station and the rest were at the top station.
We erected the mid-station's stud frame to improve the flow of the transport buoy. It was essential for us that we did not want to lose any time at the mid station during this project. In the last few years, the mid-station consisted of the tree growing there - but this meant that the barrel had to be moved every time - whether fully loaded or empty on its way down or up. And that eats up a lot of time and is also not without danger because you are working directly on a slope. Not so this year, the middle station was set up faster than expected and in operation it turned out later that Benjamin could operate the lift alone at this point.
Up to this point, everything went perfectly according to plan. The first setback hit us only when using our quad towing vehicle. The quad we had brought along, with its meager 10 hp, simply had too little power to haul a moderately filled transport barrel up the mountain. Downhill, the transport was logically no problem, but for the way up the quad was completely uneigent, it already got big cheeks, when it was just an empty barrel up the mountain to transport - there were the resistances on the rollers, the dead weight and the steep angle but a little too strong - honestly, we were surprised, but when we tried to manually pull a load uphill is almost the breath away. Anke, Benjamin, Wilke, Tobias and Marc had to really strain to transport a half-filled barrel from the valley up to the mountain station - unbelievable how hard that goes!
We were now faced with the problem that we could carry the equipment down, but definitely not up - at least not with the 10 hp quad available at that time. We discussed alternative solutions and decided that one day before the push dive, i.e. during the setup dives, we would organize a rental car from Sixt. Montpellier is not exactly around the corner, but still close enough for a day trip of Tobias, Guy and Wilke.
So in the afternoon we diligently transported the material by quad to the valley station. Sometime around 20:00 o'clock we have made ourselves on the way in the camp around with the comfortable grill the current day to pass in review and to plan at the same time the following day.
Second day:
The second project day was marked by a major disappointment, the removal could not be fully completed the day before and so we continued the work in the early morning. Unfortunately, the quad finally failed during this action, the engine simply did not start, later in the camp we found that the starter was completely charred - irrevocable total failure, because the quad has no kick starter ...
But no matter, we had already planned to book a rental car anyway, so we transported the last trips to the valley by hand to the valley station - fortunately there were only very few trips, but Anke, Guy, Tobias and Wilke also worked hard here, despite that it was only a downhill transport.
On the third day, all the necessary equipment had arrived at the valley station. Florian, Andreas and Oliver had already done a great job as the valley station team the day before! The three had so cleverly divided and organized the arriving material in the very rough terrain that each diver had his own "corner". To the untrained eye, the cave pool probably still looked like a "military training area", but everything had its order! The three had even already attached a sun and rain tent roof, so that almost the touch of a "luxury valley station" was created.
The last big piece of equipment was the habitat, after the transport to the valley station, all participants had meanwhile gathered at the valley station - the cable car was now no longer important for the next few days, everything took place in the area of the valley station. Watering down the habitat and placing it in the cave was now one of the most important tasks. Fortunately, the habitat was in the water within a few minutes - which really has to do with luck, because the entrance area of the cave is quite narrow and the habitat fits through only in a slight turning movement - and once the thing is wedged and stuck you have real problems to tear it loose again. But this time it worked really fast and the first dives started shortly after.
The cave pool is really narrow, now there is also a habitat in this already narrow cave pool and we needed 5 divers to set the habitat properly (4 corners/4 divers + lightman). Darko, Andreas, Benjamin, Anke and Guy took over this task.
After the habitat was set, the diving continued unabated. The divers who were already in the water were given countless stages to place at depths between 6 and 21m. It are already really impressive from, if two divers take between 8 and 10 bottles to themselves and then descend! For the divers in the water this was a very challenging task, not so much because of the penetration depth but more because of the amount of material and the fact that each gas had to be placed exactly. One mistake and there would possibly be problems during push or deepsetup. In addition, Andreas, Benjamin, Guy and Anke had to surface again and again to receive new tanks and were thus forced to multi-JoJo dives. Partially the divers were over 4h in a row in the water and of course also correspondingly exhausted or frozen through.
But in the evening the work was done and the "goal of the day" was reached with distinction. The habitat was placed, equipped and all deco depots up to 21m were fully equipped with over 30 stages. Florian and Oliver had fully prepared their equipment for the deep setup dive and the team was ready to start the first deep dive the following day.
The next day started immediately with the deep setup dive of Oliver and Florian. Due to the planned penetration and water depth we were forced to create own deco depots also for the deep setup team, here it had to be considered that a "reverse blockage" or any other problem with the ears could have caused huge problems. In order to have enough safety reserves, Oliver and Florian decided to use a D20 frame with a pSCR.
The two had made it their task to create the last missing depot for the push dive. Depot #5 was to be placed at 57m to store reserve gas in the form of 18/45 as well as gases that the two push divers would take further into the cave (35/35 and 12/60).
Furthermore, one additional heater tank per diver and the backup scooter were unhooked at this point. After just under 3 hours, they resurfaced and those remaining on the surface got to work hauling the equipment out of the water. After all, there had to be space on the pensioner tables for Tobias' and Wilke's equipment for the next day.
During the deep setup dive Tobias, Guy and Wilke had gone to Montpellier to organize a rental car. The three came back with a Peugeot 107 - a nice towing vehicle! Wilke and Tobias were back at the camp around 18:00, handed over the towing vehicle to Marc and headed to the bottom station to prepare their rebreathers for the following day, Push Day.
The two of them settled in quite comfortably for the dive and meticulously prepared their equipment. When they arrived back at the camp at 20:00, they had a quick dinner and then went back to sleep.
The big day:
In the camp was ready from 6:00 clock everyone on the legs, the goal was a descent around 8:00 clock.
Shortly after the communal breakfast Tobias and Wilke went ahead to the cave pool, the plan was that they could prepare in peace, slightly apart from the group. The rest of the group arrived at the pool about 20 minutes later and immediately started preparing for the dive. The double 20 frames of Tobias and Wilke were not yet placed on the rental tables and had to be lowered directly into the pool area via a specially installed pulley.
Around 9:30 am Tobias and Wilke descended into the pool with their dry suits on in the meantime. Tobias first squeezed into the rebreather, then Darko helped Wilke to put on his equipment.
It is always surprising how long it takes despite Darko's help until the equipment is really 100% dressed. In this case, the assembly and wiring of the sidemount rebreather was an additional hurdle.
The actual descent took place at 10:00, two hours later than planned. Tobias and Wilke gave a short OK signal and then dived for the next 14.5 hours into the Gourneyrou cave.
After the descent, calm returned to the surface and the whole team could take a deep breath.
The next item on the agenda was another dive by Oliver and Florian. This time they were supposed to dive towards the push divers to take the equipment from them that was no longer needed. The agreed rendezvous point was after the "first bend" in about 35m water depth. The start of the two was timed so that they would meet there in the agreed time window. The maximum waiting time at the rendezvous point was 30 minutes.
In order to be on the spot at the agreed rendezvous time, Oliver and Florian dove down punctually at 13:00. Due to the setup dive the day before, the two had a pretty precise idea how long they would need for the way behind the first bend and the following ascent to 36m.
The dive this time was much more relaxed than the day before, Florian and Oliver were not piled up with tons of "heavy" stages and backup scooters. Only their own drivestages, a 35/35 and a deep trimix were with them. In addition, they had Wilke's camera clipped on.
After the descent, the two took enough time to check all stage deposits for the shallow stops from 36 to 6m. They also took a close look at the habitat and its equipment. Then it went off finally, and both scooted completely relaxed along the line.
After the 35m depot the cave first changes its face. From the rather large hall at the entrance with its almost smooth, sloping ceiling, it now leads through a very rugged passage profile, which extends over a depth range of 20 to 30m.
After about 30 min of driving, Oliver and Florian reached the sloping dump to the first bend. Here they had also set up the 57m deposit. Both quickly checked the deposited gases, deposited the camera and dived on quickly, after all the schedule had to be kept...
So "fire at will" and dived down the dump, which consisted of fine gravel, briefly looked at the computer, just under 90m and then back up on the other side towards the meeting point. Here the cave looked completely different again. The ascent was actually not a tunnel, but rather resembled a canyon that drops very steeply. Arriving at the 36m point, both clipped their scooters and the deep trimix into the line, switched to the 35/35 and waited....
Unfortunately, the Pushdiver did not appear after the agreed 30min, then the back has probably taken a little longer... that is then just so... Oliver and Florian gave a few minutes of goodwill, wrote a nice message on a Wetnotes sheet, attached this with a cookie on the line and dived out.
In order to saturate as little as possible they hurried to pass the lowest point again and started on the exit side of the sump with their deco. The way back was rather unspectacular, very sad that the rendezvous had not worked out. Now Tobias and Wilke had to take all their stuff out alone. Florian and Oliver did their deco steps one by one and then dived under the habitat after the 9m stop to get to the 6m point.
The last stop was just below the spring pond. It was possible to see Darko, who was swimming on the surface, already giving short light signals. A few minutes later he visited them and they gave him the info that the push team had not arrived as expected.
The good 70min on the 6m stop passed actually quite fast, Oliver and Florian had been the gas breaks every now and then something to drink and a small package of carbohydrate gel to take. The heating was also switched on, after all, the two were already a good four hours on the road, and with the heating even 4h are actually quite pleasant.
At the end of the deco, a quiet regular bubbling and booming could finally be heard behind them, which was interrupted every now and then by a larger gush. That had to be the push team! Tobias and Wilke must consequently also have arrived on the flat stops, although everyone was sure that everything was okay despite the burst meeting, it was then quite a relief!
When at the end of the deco, the slow ascent was started and the deep setup team pierced the surface of the narrow spring pond after a few minutes, they directly passed on the suspected info about the pushdivers. Now the support crew could get ready for the first contact. Darko supported first Oliver and then Florian in putting down the equipment, so that space was created in the pool and the next two colleagues could dive down to pick up the info about the deco and the hopefully first success message from Tobias and Wilke. Shortly after, the first support divers went into the water to ask about the status of the pushtaucher team and to bring equipment up with them.
Tobias and Wilke describe the dive as follows:
"After Darko helped us to put on the equipment, we could finally dive down around 10:00.
The visibility in the front area was already very cloudy, the setup dives had made the visibility much worse. Orientation in the first few meters of the cave, however, is very easy, following the line and passage and inevitably passing the habitat. We checked the pressure and quantity of the breathing gases fixed there. For each diver two 80cuft oxygen, one heating tank, two 80cuft 18/45 as break gas and one argon set for later diving out were mounted at the habitat. We noticed that the habitat was placed quite crooked, which simply would not have been possible otherwise under the given circumstances.
Our plan that we would take up the gases gradually as the penetration progressed to a water depth of 57m worked out perfectly. First, at an estimated 30m water depth, we picked up our first Scooter and 12/60 gas. At 36m we switched from our 35/35 to the 12/60 and followed the course with our scooters to 57m water depth. Here, at 57m, was our last depot, equipped with more scooters, 35, 18 and 12 gas.
Up to 57m the course of the cave was known, easy up and down, sometimes a little narrower, sometimes a little wider, but still so wide that scootering at moderate speed was possible without any problems. From 57m the cave dropped rabidly, no "shaft feeling" but the descent was quite clear and the course of the cave became more curvy and narrower. The rocks themselves were rather darker colored, in places flashed a little white rock.
As expected, the 80m phase passed quite quickly, the ascent was not quite as steep as the descent and so we were even able to manage this part with our scooters while driving slowly. The course goes up to 21m without any major stops in between.
In the 21m area we stumbled at first, the further course was not to be recognized without further ado, Tobias remembered this place and showed the correct way - which quite incidentally is now also leashed out. However, the main passage becomes very narrow, too narrow for us - at least if you are traveling with a D20 incl. 4 stages, two scooters and a sidemount gyro. With this configuration, there was no getting through. Wilke briefly stuck his head through, but that's all we could do - so, as already trained in France - put everything down, one through, pass all the junk to the opposite side and put it down there. In France, it was Tobias who was the first to dive through in the St. Saveur, here Wilke dared the first attempt; a little rumble, a little forward, a little back, stuck, back again and a new attempt, after a few seconds Wilke was through. Then Tobias through the bottleneck pilot to put on the other side again everything anew.
Hardly we were with our new sorted equipment 3Min. on the way, the Reel of Carten Richard appeared in our lamp cones, this had obviously remained in the last year, we decided to take it only on the way back, we were nevertheless already equipped with sufficient Reels.
Behind the Restriction, the cave began to change its character, the passage became canyon-like, the appearance of the walls was increasingly determined by bright white spots, which made the cave appear much "friendlier".
Several line remnants crossed our path, although the course of the cave corresponded to a clear tunnel, we were forced again and again to follow the partly chaotically laid lines. We had discussed before the dive that we would patch all places where we did not find a continuous line. So it is not surprising that we were primarily busy with "line restoration" at the beginning. Typically, it went like this: We reached a supposed end of the line, connected the reel, scooted forward a bit, searched the wall for a continuing line, found one, and re-established a continuous connection with the reel - only to find a new line end after a few seconds of travel, connected there again, and so on. Understandably, we made very slow progress with this method.
At some point this became too stupid for us and we decided to pull our own line completely through. This worked really well - we passed the deep parts much faster and finally covered some distance.
The cave is beautiful, the cave passages change their depth quite abruptly, the rock formations are sometimes sharp-edged and sometimes heavily washed out, sometimes dark and sometimes snow-white - it is amazing how the cave changed its appearance in the course of this dive. Visibility was perfect - sure, not crystal clear water, but still visibility beyond 20 meters. We followed the obvious cave course, after our first 100meter bend the cave seemed much more rugged, there were mini-shafts, narrower canyons and short dead ends. Orientation was much more challenging here and having our own leash with us gave a good feeling.
We made an effort to find another passage, knowing that the EKPP had reached the avoidable end just past the 100m kink - and maybe we would get lucky and find another passage.
In the meantime, we already reeled off our second reel, with the last meters we then actually reached the 60m area. The cave is suddenly and abruptly narrower and you immediately notice how the visibility quickly and for this cave completely untypical, clouded. When we reached the end of the cave, we tried to squeeze through a crack, but there was no way through.
So we started the way back, meanwhile the visibility was so bad that we could just see our hand in front of our eyes - we followed the course of the line in touch contact to the line in reverse order and reached after 10min. the area of the cave with better visibility.
Now, on the way back, we knew that everything would go much faster, ergo the ears would be loaded higher, we therefore paid scrupulous attention to our ears - a reverse blockage could have caused really serious problems. The deeper passages at 100m and 90m were nevertheless dived through surprisingly fast. At depot #5, which we had created ourselves, we switched to "fresh" breathing gases and continued to follow the course of the cave. When Carsten's reel appeared we knew that we were just before our "restriction" - so we took everything off again, let Tobias dive through, give Tobias all the junk and then Wilke after him to put everything on again on the other side - really quite tedious.
We had almost made it, still down to 36m and there Florian and Oliver would have waited for us to take our unneeded bottles. Well, but unfortunately we were almost 120min late - and the original plan was that Oliver and Florian should wait max. 30min. on about 30m. So when we were now on the way to our agreed meeting point, we found as expected no one there. But Oliver and Florian had cleverly left a short message incl. cookie for us - a good sign! They had stuck to the plan and showed up without us.
But for us this meant that we had to take all the equipment ourselves! We shot briefly at 80m and then at 57m we picked up our first deco gas, an 18/55 and plugged it in. At this point there were also two additional 35/35s for safety. Tobias and Wilke took it all in, which to be honest is not really funny after more than 6 hours of diving, Wilke's right calf cramped up again and again and clipping the stages became increasingly difficult for both of them. The fingers were too stiff and immobile - but it all helped nothing. Each Pushdiver had to take 3x35/35, 2x12/60, 2 heating tanks, 2x Scooter and a 18/55, additionally they had the camera with flashes with them - it went somehow however Wilke confessed afterwards that shapely diving looks surely differently, the 35/35s were all still sporty full and thus very heavy, which inevitably affected the water position, in places the two resembled an upright ping-pong table pulled by the scooter, whereby the ping-pong table again and again had cramps in the calves ; -)
Tobias and Wilke dragged the whole stuff to the 24m stop and fixed it there. At this point they also unpacked the camera and created the only UW photo of this tour, in retrospect very sad, but at this point both were already 8h in the water and neither of them honestly felt like any other occupation.
They did their deco times according to their plan and finally reached the habitat after almost 10 hours.
The entry into the habitat was almost routine, from the outside it must look like the two would die, but as a person concerned it is very pleasant, you are secured with carabiners on the habitat, just hold on and the rest is done by two support divers. When the push diver has put on his weight belt, he can glide into the habitat. In the habitat Tobias was already waiting for Wilke, a short congratulation, a big grin and the food order written in the wetnotes.
Their food followed promptly and after more than 10 hours of diving time, the two first had a little refreshment. The breaks they did in the usual rhythm of 12/8.
After 4 hours in the habitat they decided to surface, the deco was finished according to the plan and so they got their backplates to start the way back to the surface.
The surface team reacted not badly when suddenly Wilke's lamp cones appeared at 3m. Wilke, to the general amusement, also gave an Attention signal in the direction of the surface, which Darko interpreted as a distress signal and immediately triggered hectic surface movements- when Wilke noticed the reaction to this, he quickly switched to the OK sign and everything relaxed instantly.
Tobais and Wilke had actually planned to do 10min on 6meters and 20min. on 3m with oxygen, but it seemed unnecessarily long to both of them and so they spent few minutes on 6meters with their 18/45 breakgas and only did a quick 20min. with O2 under the watchful eyes of Darko on the 3meter stop.
By the time they broke the surface it was already dark night and exactly half past one. Everyone was totally exhausted, Tobias and Wilke struggled out of the pool and changed their clothes - and that's quite something, after more than 14 hours of diving they were no longer able to take off their wet gloves themselves, no strength left in their fingers and a completely stiff posture!
After the suit was removed, it went much better, Wilke and Tobias have good and happy 30min only reported about the experience, when the most important thing was said, all decided to start the way home. Despite the long dive time, the upcoming steep slope was no problem, all arrived at the top, as always out of breath, but otherwise no further failures - a sufficient deco just pays off ;-)
This evening ended quickly, we collectively decided that we would move the party to the following evening - and what can we say; everyone was more than grateful for this decision because that evening no one needed more than 3min. to fall into their blissful deep sleep."
After we had transported all the equipment back upstairs and stored it in the cars on the following days, we parted ways and the Gourneyrou 2013 team dissolved into different directions.
Tobias, Darko, Oliver and Wilke set off to explore an unknown cave, maybe an upcoming Cavebase project ;-)
"A really cool project !"
In this sense,
Your Cavebase
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