Baume de la Fraite

The entrance porch is vast (15 x 3 m) but lowers 40 m further on in a zone of partly flooded bedding planes about fifty metres long. One then goes up the stream for 250 m in a gallery along a bedding plane (5 x 2 m on average) with a flat ceiling. This route is made uneven only by a few potholes and a short crawlway on the left bank 210 m from the entrance. One then arrives in a collapsed zone where one must leave the watercourse to find one's way for about thirty metres through a narrow labyrinth between the blocks of a collapse. Beyond, after descending a 4 m escarpment, one finds the stream again in a gallery similar to the first part. One hundred metres upstream there is a junction. To the right, a half-flooded bedding plane that can be followed upstream for 150 m to an impassable sump located 630 m from the entrance. Laterally, a small dry chamber opens on the right bank and higher up 30 m from the junction. To the left, a gallery with a few speleothems; after 30 to 40 m, a collapse blocks progress.

To the left of the junction, one leaves the stream to visit a gallery with a few speleothems.

La Baume de la Fraite is a permanent exsurgence traversed along its entire length by a ruisseau souterrain (underground stream). Most of the water in flood comes from behind the collapse that blocks the left gallery.

The visit of this ruisseau souterrain (underground stream) is easy and picturesque and requires no equipment. In flood, the zone of bedding planes near the entrance can prove dangerous; if blocked, wait for the water to recede before entering it. To the right of the junction, one immerses oneself in a half-flooded bedding plane. To the left, the collapse has been explored for about thirty metres at the cost of superhuman efforts; the logical continuation nevertheless lies well behind this obstacle.