Jean-Paul Sounier

State guiding degrees in caving, canyoning and scuba diving. PADI OWS Instructor.

Jean-Paul has been caving since 1966. The following years, he explored deep caves in France, Italie and Turkey where he took part in an expedition in 1969. To conciliate his love for travelling and caves exploration, he became involved in caving expeditions all around the world. He then explored deep caves in Algeria, Austria, Spain and New-Zealand, and smaller caves networks in Haiti and Tasmania. But Papua New Guinea became his favorite "caves hunting field". He took part in 6 expeditions in these far away islands. The last two expeditions concerned Muruk cave which became in 1995 the first 1000 m deep cave in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2000, 2002 and 2004, he lead three expeditions on a virgin karst in Samar (Philippines); there, 30 km of new caves were explored; one of these caves, named Devil's cave (Can-Yawa lungib), is now 13 km long.

Jean-Paul discovered canyoning in Australia, in 1982. Then, he visited the main canyons in the Côte-d'Azur hinterland for the publishing of the book: "l'Aventure Verticale dans les Alpes d'Azur". He is a guide in canyoning since 1989.

Keen on outdoors sports and jogging, he took part in 1989 in the first "Raid Gauloises" in New Zealand. The following years, he took part as a controller in the Raid Gauloises in Malaysia, Argentina and South Africa-Lesotho. Gerard Fusil chose him to elaborate the itinaries of the Elf Authentic Adventure in the Philippines and Brazil (1999 and 2000). He is now in charge of the same task for Gerard Fusil's new outdoor-race, the "Réunion d'Aventures", which is going to take place in the Reunion island every year.