Not
all holes in the limestone Jura are as delicately circumscribed as this slender
fellow in the Creux d'Enfer de Petit Cunay. In
some places, the limestone holes of the Jura could swallow your house and ask
for another.
La Glacière de Saint George
Like
this one, La Glacière de Saint George, deep
in the forest a few kilometres and 350 vertical meters uphill from the village
of St George above Rolle. February 2002.
With
fencing thoughtfully built round some of it, and ladders leading downward about
15 meters to a broad ledge, then another 15 meters or so to a floor with permanent
ice and passages leading off in several directions, the "Gouffre",
or "abyss", is a protected natural monument and accessible only by a
path through the forest.
Despite
the Forest Service's best efforts to warn passersby off, footprints in the snow
can be clearly seen leading down to the ladders. On a dark day in February 2002,
we know whose footprints they were not.
(The
single-track road that passes to the northeast, at 1250m, leads down to the village
of St.-George; the road to the south, at 1320m, leads down to Longirod.)
The
Glacière de Saint George is one of the few
big holes that we've stumbled upon so far, in the wild so to speak, that has facilities
built on.
It's
still here two years later, 29 February 2004.
Tourist
facilities nicely added on.
Once
down the ladders, tourists find a nice big chamber, lots of ice all round, with
passages radiating out in a few directions, explorable but probably more successfully
by smaller people than the present narrator, who got wedged.
Still,
let's wait till summer to try it out again.
Joe
and Marlowe visiting the Gouffre on 30 December 2004
Dwight
Peck's personal Web site
Feedback
and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, 
.
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 19 February 2002, revised 19 July 2008.
