Grotte de la Draye Blanche

The Draye Blanche cave is in the commune of La Chapelle-en-Vercors, in the Drôme, in the heart of the Vercors. It is said to have been discovered in 1918 by a trapper nicknamed "Marseille", who had lost his dog there after it fell down an entrance shaft.

This limestone cavity is very old: the oldest concretions indicate an age of about 4.7 million years. The temperature stays close to 10 °C. The main hall measures roughly 100 metres by 30, and its walls bear thousands of stalactites, stalagmites and columns in varied tints, formed by water seeping into the cracks of the rock. A small world of cave fauna, typical of the caves of the Prealps, also lives there.

In 1990, the boring of a gallery revealed a true natural trap: more than 15,000 bones belonging to 45 animal species, from the shrew to the cave bear, had been deposited there over the millennia. The visit is made with a guide.

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