Cova de les Grioteres

Of the seven entrances the cave has, only two are easy to access, since the other five hang in the cliff. All these entrances are connected inside by a series of galleries with a reticulate structure, which gives the whole a labyrinthine appearance. These galleries, found in the first metres, gradually lose width until they become totally obstructed by sediments. Only two of them maintain continuity towards the interior of the limestone mass. At the entrance marked as no. 5 begins the longest gallery, which, after 22 metres of passage, suddenly narrows forming a small chamber from which two galleries set off. The one going to the left (according to the direction of entry) is of medium form and as one advances it gains height and loses width. This gallery ends in two very narrow branches where some clastic process can be observed. Returning to the small chamber mentioned above, if one follows the right-hand gallery the ceiling height is very low for the first metres and then quickly gains height. This gallery descends slightly towards a meander that is currently obstructed and beside which there is a new passage about 2 metres long that must be negotiated by crawling, to emerge into another meander where the gallery again gains height and becomes slightly ascending. One then reaches a small hall that breaks the continuity of the gallery and which is found again at the other end of it, where it continues through a very low-ceilinged conduit that leads to another gallery of the same width dimensions, but with a greater development in height. This gallery, which extends for about 20 metres, ends in a small widening where an old descending conduit can be observed, currently filled by sediments. The other gallery to highlight, marked on the survey with no. 2, is, in its first 12 metres, quite wide, then taking a more or less semicircular form until reaching a passage with a relatively low ceiling that leads into a fairly high gallery which, in its final stretch, descends through a narrow passage towards a terminal conduit of reduced dimensions, which ends about 5 metres on, being totally obstructed by sediments. In all of the initial galleries one can observe the “emptying” of sediments that has been carried out for archaeological purposes. The whole of all the galleries presents a surveyed length of 323 metres; we do not know the cave's vertical extent as it is not provided by the authors of the survey.

It is a typical spring excavated in the so-called calcàries sorrenques de Tavertet and to whose genesis the subterranean course that currently flows about 15 metres below the level of the cave has contributed.