Balme du Cros-Mignon

The entrance is a pretty forced conduit that widens out to open into a joint. This is blocked to the south by stalagmitic flows, and opposite a loose descent leads to the Salle de l'Éperon, cluttered with large collapsed blocks. At the back on the right, small descending passages in the scree, after clearing, gave access to the other part of the cavity. Going back up towards the entrance, one can slip into a low, loose passage along the left wall, opening onto a fairly large chamber. It is in this chamber that a narrow passage was found at the bottom of a small step, which after clearing gave access to the continuation. One emerges through a suspended squeeze onto a cluttered conduit, then climbs back up a steep slope. One eventually butts up against blocks but the passage exists, one must squeeze through on the right via a chicane to come out into a fine interstratal volume. Setting off to the left, one meets beneath a flow another chicane; it is through there that the junction was made with the first gallery visited. a climb along the inclined wall of the interstratal, passing a large wedged slab, yielded nothing. It is by setting off to the right that one reaches a flat-out crawl that ends at a fairly severe squeeze; one enters it feet first, as one is on a floor a little above the continuation. Below, a parallel passage found later, narrow and cluttered with blocks, will join this sector. After a passage beneath a chimney, the conduit narrows and ends in a dead end.

a rising straight section shows a ceiling of ceiling pendants bristling with cauliflowers. Opposite the constriction, one advances into a pretty stretch of gallery, high, with numerous ceiling pendants and stalagmitic columns.

The terminal dead end is graced with a pool of water.

It is this passage that was so difficult to find again on the way back during the first trip, giving us some anxieties!

In the Salle de l'Éperon, one finds remains of what look like giant's kettles, studded with guano (certainly a manifestation of bio-corrosion).