Entrée sèche de Vicdessos
Grotte traversed by a rivière souterraine, accessible via an artificial gallery and a network of meanders, laminators and chambers, with a more convenient fossil exit.
EspeleoWorld
Entrée sèche de Vicdessos
Grotte traversed by a rivière souterraine, accessible via an artificial gallery and a network of meanders, laminators and chambers, with a more convenient fossil exit.
Auzat
System length: 1550 m · System depth: 110 m
Updated record
https://espeleoworld.com/en/c/entree-seche-de-vicdessos-auzat
Information can change. Always verify coordinates, access, weather, and cave conditions before setting out.
Grotte traversed by a rivière souterraine, accessible via an artificial gallery and a network of meanders, laminators and chambers, with a more convenient fossil exit.
Description
Morphology
The artificial entrance gallery intersects the cave on the left after 30 metres. After the laminators, the meander widens and the gallery takes on a very characteristic "ace of spades" profile. 70 metres after the Ace of Spades, the active gallery makes a small bend to the left. After a concretion-narrowed squeeze, one arrives in a chaotic chamber; an easy climb on the right from the entrance of the chamber leads to a small chamber.
Speleothems
The route includes a concretion-narrowed squeeze.
Hydrology
A river flows through a fine meander; a few cascades are easily climbed. The low wall protects the cave from any rise in water due to the dam. In the gorge, an unobvious active entrance emerges in the middle of a cascade.
Progression
You must pass the low wall that protects the cave from any rise in water due to the dam and take a low passage on the right that leads to a fine meander where the river flows. A few cascades are easily climbed, then you take a fossil meander on the right that brings you back to the river a few tens of metres later. There follows a series of laminators that are not very narrow but where you must contort yourself to avoid getting wet. It is 70 metres after the Ace of Spades, at the small left bend of the active gallery, that you must leave the river by continuing straight on into a gallery that rises slightly. After a concretion-narrowed squeeze, you continue always taking the widest passage on the right and arrive in a chaotic chamber. Following this chamber and climbing up at the end over blocks, then under blocks, there is an unobvious active entrance because it emerges in the middle of a cascade in a gorge and because the blocks you pass under are genuinely unstable. It is better to take an easy climb on the right from the entrance of the chamber; this leads to a small chamber, in which a low passage on the right leads to a meander that can be followed, narrowing to a fossil exit and therefore more convenient.
Other details
In the gorge, you can go up on the left bank through the forest and descend on the right to the campsite to reach the car. But it is more fun to go back through the cave to exit by letting yourself slide down the entrance cascades.
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Contains information from Grottocenter (Wikicaves), grottocenter.org, made available under the Open Database License (ODbL 1.0, https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/), modified. · https://grottocenter.org/ui/entrances/5748 · The derived data is available on request under the ODbL: [email protected] · data as of 2026 · Source: Grottocenter (Association Wikicaves), worldwide collaborative cave database (grottocenter.org), modified. CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Grottocenter (Wikicaves) · Text by Florence Guillot (Description générale) · adapted by Espeleoworld (normalized, translated); the adaptation is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ · https://grottocenter.org/ui/entrances/5748 · data as of 2026