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Grotte du Pont Martin

Cave traversed without equipment, with a handline, wet vaults, a collector, meanders and gours, described in Spélunca in the early 1980s.

Torcieu 686m 39m

Cave traversed without equipment, with a handline, wet vaults, a collector, meanders and gours, described in Spélunca in the early 1980s.

Characteristics

  • Type: Cave
  • Municipality: Torcieu
  • Length: 686 meters
  • Depth: 39 meters
  • Record updated:

Location

Map

Entrances

Always verify coordinates and access conditions before setting out.

  1. Grotte du Pont Martin

    45.926403, 5.385206
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Description

Morphology

The passage is narrow, wet and muddy, and it gives access to the continuation of the meander, which ends quickly at various impenetrable points with attempted digging.

Speleothems

You go up the collector into Un aesthetic meander; a few shallow gours embellish the route. You then leave the collector to reach Un semi-fossil meander with the presence of a few deeper gours. Some gours can be bypassed by high-level opposition (rather suited to tall people).

Hydrology

a wet vault blocks the entrance after a few metres, but it clears in the dry season. a 2nd wet vault follows shortly after, which also clears in the dry season. a dam was created after the 2nd wet vault to direct the entire flow of the collector into a fissure, which allows the wet vaults to clear more quickly.

Progression

a fixed handline gives access to the entrance of the cave. a low passage then gives access to Un fossil sump; sandbags hold back the sand so that it does not slide down towards the low point of this crawl. The cavity is traversed without equipment, but a harness is necessary to pass the handline on the traverse leading to the entrance of the cavity. Wearing the bottom part of a neoprene suit is recommended for traversing the cavity (low passages in water, gours to cross).

History

The cavity is described in Un issue of Spélunca dating from the early 1980s (I no longer have the reference).

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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/5515 · 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 Frédéric Delegue (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/5515 · data as of 2026