Cave System
The Dent de Crolles hosts one of the most complex and vast cave systems in Europe. It is considered to be one of the birth places of modern caving. Its first detailed exploration was during WWII by a small team of French cavers composed of Pierre Chevalier, Fernand Petzl, Charles Petit-Didier and others. Their explorations saw it become the deepest cave in the world (-658m) at the time, and it still ranks sixth deepest in France today. The lack of available equipment during the war forced Pierre Chevalier and the rest of the team to develop their own equipment, leading to technical innovation. The first use of the single rope technique with prusik and mechanical rope-ascenders (Henri Brenot's "monkeys", first used by Chevalier and Brenot in a cave in 1934) can be directly associated with the exploration of the Dent de Crolles cave system.
Since 1946, the cave has undergone an intense and continuous survey. As of 2007, it has 9 separate entrances (3 potholes on the top karstic plateau, 5 horizontal caves and one cliff entrance). It is known to include more than 58 km of labyrinthic passageways. The two major entrances are the "trou-du-Glaz" and the "Guiers-Mort" cave. The cave system is famous today for the various through trips that the numerous entrances allow.
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