Monday, January 25, 2016

January 25, 2016 - Walk like an Egyptian.

I had to take half a day off work today, because our big boiler that takes care of the heating and hot water broke down, and a technician was coming in the afternoon.
This sucks, but I tried to make a positive out of a negative and took the advantage of going climbing too.
It was warm today, up to 15°C in the afternoon!
I should have thought of it before, but the wet weather from a couple of days before and the warmth now, gave a lot of condensation. When I arrived at Franchard, I quickly realized that I went there for nothing. All boulders were soaking wet, covered with condensation drops. It looked like rock covered with small pearls.

I had to be quick to find another option and drove to J.A. Martin to try "Sur le Fil (retour-aller)" again as I knew pretty much that it would be dry, free from condensation.
At least with the warmer weather, my hands wouldn't freeze, and it was still cold enough for the slopers to stick.

I was relieved to find it as dry as a constipated cat's ass and was determined to finish it today.
Immediately I was able to go one way but always fell off the slab on my way back due to the lack of chalk on my hands.
For me, one crux is on the slopers in the slab, in both directions. The other crux is the continuity. I'm not a length climber, but those 30 (nice) moves almost make it a sportclimbing route, just without a rope. That's why this felt more like a 7B for me, or very hard 7A+.
Luckily there are a couple of quick rests in between, so all I still had to do was to come up with a way to chalk up my hands on the way.
Once I came up with the idea to place my chalk bag on the left corner, I made it.
After coming back down, I was walking like an Egyptian again. (See the video until the end if you want to know what that looks like.)
Don't worry, it's over now, I took a quick rest and can walk normal again now.

Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Sur le Fil (retour-aller) 7A+(7B)




Indeed, the song that was in my head last time was "Walk Like an Egyptian".

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