The Grottes de Naye, Chamber of Mud

Dwight Peck's personal website

The Grottes de Naye

Views of a few more trips through the caves

The Grottes de Naye are a complicated reticulum of channels, tunnels, sinkholes, and nasty cracks in the limestone left behind when the glacier inside the Rochers de Naye mountain, above Montreux, Switzerland, melted out early in the 20th century. Scuba-spelunkers can wander about at their leisure in the vast and narrow subterranean passages, but hikers pursue a 20-minute slippery, muddy dash upward, or slide downward, by following little trailmarkers, or just keeping always to their left (upward) or right (downward).

Peter accompanying the narrator on his first trip through the Grottes de Naye, October 1980 -- starting out at the bottom (above), and (right) very pleased to reach the top of the ridge after a horrific time on the snow above the upper exit of the caves.

July 1981

Fritz entering the bottom of the caves, 5 July 1981 (snow lasts longer at the bottom entrance to the caves because it lies at the base of an avalanche route off the walls above).

Jane following Fritz. (Faulty camera, sorry.)

Unsuccessful this time: 2/3 of the way up, the route was blocked by ice, and the hikers returned to the lower entrance (Fritz and Kris climbing out again). Jane and Fritz (below) are thinking up a different hike to go on, rather than lose the day.