Grotte de la Balme Sabatiere

a fine ogival entrance leading into a chamber from which side passages branch off.

a) a corridor about a dozen metres long, 1 to 2 m wide and 4 to 5 m high at the ceiling; the stony floor has a slight north-south slope. On the right-hand side of the corridor, nothing to report; on its left-hand side on entering, a shallow, narrow recess used no doubt for the defence of the entrance, then a few low niches and a widening of 4 m x 3, with the same ceiling height as in the corridor. On the north wall, fractures towards the ceiling could be the beginnings of passages.

b) The corridor then opens into the “great chamber”: an irregular ellipse of 10 m x 4 to 5, perpendicular to the entrance.

c) On the left, the end of the ellipse forms a small oblong room (5 m x 6 m) raised by 15 to 20 cm. To the right of this widening can be seen a partly filled pit, about 1 metre deep; it communicates with a chimney on the mountainside (Guiraud, SCAA, 1938). The other end of the great chamber gives, through a low opening, onto a small room, almost a crawlway three metres long, with a stony floor, which ends in a raised burrow. The west wall of the great chamber has openings to be investigated at a height of 4 or 5 metres. On returning towards the corridor one finds a small room 2 to 3 m wide, roughly square, with an earth floor, showing traces of excavation.

In the corridor and its widening, the speleothems are poorly developed; the small raised oblong room has better-formed speleothems than the former.