The car park is on the right-hand side of the D579 coming from Aubenas, just before the junction with the Vogüé road. The path is signposted ‘Site d’Escalade’ (climbing site).
(S/E) Leave the car park by passing under the bridge, then turn right at the first junction. Follow the old railway line, now converted into a cycle path (Via Ardèche). Turn left and continue until you reach a bridge.
(1) Leave the Via Ardèche on the left to reach a junction. Take the path on the left, which climbs steeply towards the hill. At the junction at the top of the hill, take the path on the left. Continue for two or three hundred metres until you reach a flat area.
(2) Leave the track that continues straight ahead and take a small path on the right. Keeping to the left bank of the stream, you’ll reach a small clearing where the path turns sharply left and crosses the stream, which is usually dry.
(3) To see the entrance to the cave, make a round trip by following the stream bed and then continuing straight on between the two valleys at the confluence. After retracing your steps, rejoin the path on the right and reach a wide track on the right bank of the stream. Take this track to the right to climb the hill.
Ignore all the offshoots to the left, including the motocross tracks, and continue until you reach a tarmac road.
(4) Follow it to the right for about a hundred metres, then turn right onto a path marked with white and yellow signs. Ignore the first path joining from the right and continue until you reach a right-angled junction, just after a section over rock slabs.
(5) Leave the markings and turn right onto a slightly narrower path that winds through the oak trees.
(6) At the first junction, turn right. Here you’ll rejoin the white-and-yellow markings. Follow them to the hamlet of Bannes.
Please note: at a left-hand bend, leave the widest path and continue straight on along a narrower path that runs along the northern slope of the hill.
(7) Walk through the hamlet, then turn right just before the bridge over the Via Ardèche. Walk past a paddock and then a vineyard. You’ll come to a wooden gate. Join the Via Ardèche. After crossing the first bridge, turn right onto the path that leads back to the original junction.
(1) Follow the route back in the opposite direction to return to the car park at the climbing site (S/E).