Trou du Lion

Also known as grotte du Lion or gouffre de la Gueule du Lion, marked on topographic maps under number 119 in the inventory of cavities recorded on the Granier massif by Spéléo club de Savoie, the cavity begins in a spacious grotto whose crumbling ramp slopes steeply along the dip of the massif, interrupted about fifty metres from the entrance by a first gaping shaft 4 metres high. Below, the floor descends downstream via a 25-metre step, then drops through two successive shafts 7 and 20 metres high leading to a large-sized gallery cluttered with blocks down to 62 metres below the surface of the grotto entrance. Sliding between the rocks, a gallery is revealed that escapes abruptly downstream, interspersed with a series of active shafts of 12, 3, 10 and 25 metres, continuing somewhat along impenetrable fissures blocked by blocks down to -137 metres.

To the South, at -62, at the top of a 3-metre-high ascending step, a dead-end gallery, low-ceilinged and clayey, descends without notable gradient over about a hundred metres of distance, closed by fillings. Below the R3, a narrow passage gives access via a second vertical notch (R7, P6 and P7) at -82 into a small chamber, to the North of which a corridor escapes towards the lower level. Opposite, via an inclined plane and a 4-metre-deep step, a series of verticals (P7, P12) appears, cutting a crumbling meander barred by hoppers (R11, R+5). A final shaft 24 metres high ends the pit at 140 metres depth.

The rostrum peak of the Granier massif, whose frowning summits run from North to South oscillating between 1933 and 1844 metres altitude, forms above the village of la Plagne a remarkable wall crowned by the strangely wrought pinnacle of the Tète de Lion. On a narrow projection of the wall, discernible only from the grassy ridge, a fine opening notches the dazzling limestones of the Urgonian. Although perched above this enormous void whose impression remains unforgettable, suggesting from the entrance important extensions inside the massif, the gouffre de la Tète de Lion remains of modest extent for its 140 metres of depth. Devoid of long and spacious galleries like the other great cavities that pierce the plateau like a sieve, the cavern is known to develop along the axis of a large fault, a true dividing ridge that compartmentalizes the massif of the Alpe from that of the Alpette.

Climbing a stalagmitic flow at the bottom of the P4 also makes it possible to envisage a better itinerary to reach the lowest point.

The large fault along which the cavern develops guides all the waters in their vertical courses towards the marly depths of the massif over which they flow.

At the lowest point, only a 24-metre vertical, split into 15 and 9 metres, invalidates the route.

However, this fine promising orifice surely represents a ventilation opening communicating with the great underlying caverns such as the Balme à Collomb or the réseau des Myriades, which hold a profusion of tiered galleries intertwining in a veritable three-dimensional labyrinth that expert speleologists have been actively exploring for about twenty years. Inventoried and skilfully catalogued over more than 23 kilometres of extension, the vast réseau du Trou des Auges-Cuvée des Ours has precisely yielded a surprising underground route, ending in an incredible and unusual window open onto 450 metres of void in the North face of the Granier, making headlines for extending, with all its junctions, from East to West across the massif.