Sunday, July 31, 2016

July 31, 2016 - I'm back!

Yesterday morning, we left at 5h30 in the morning for an 800 km long drive back home from the South of France.
7 hours later (we had a good drive) we arrived back home, and about an hour and a half later, I was already in Rocher du Télégraphe.
The last problem I climbed before leaving on holiday was "Coup d'Epaule", and now I immediately wanted to do the sitstart.

I needed some time to adapt to the rock again and my feet even hurt in my shoes. I had to get used to them again, or was it the other way around?
Either way, I still remembered the moves from the stand and as the sit doesn't add that much to it, it was done pretty quickly.

Fontainebleau - Rocher du Télégraphe - Coup d'Epaule (assis) 7A(7A+)




I also did the newly opened "Burpees", a little bit down the hill, but as I'm not sure that I did everything correctly, I will not post the video yet. I will first ask the opener, Tony (Fouchereau), his opinion.
I did take a picture of the boulder though ...

The "Burpees" boulder.

Today, around noon, I went to Jean des Vignes to check the low 'tooth' hold of "La Faim du Tigre".

When I tried it a couple of weeks ago for the first time, it was wet, despite the weather being sunny and hot since a couple of days. I guess that the rain that's trapped inside the soft sandstone is being evacuated via the lowest point of the 'tooth'.
No matter what I tried, I just couldn't hold on to that slippery humid hold long enough.

Now, however, it was dry!
It didn't take long to finish it off, but I did hurt myself a couple of times by hitting the small boulder under it with my back.
The first 2 moves and taking the swing are hard, but from then on, it becomes quite soft for the grade.
The total package however, gets 5 stars from me on bleau.info! I really enjoyed climbing this!

Fontainebleau - Jean des Vignes - La Faim du Tigre 7B




Back in 2011, I did "La Volte-Face (direct)", a problem at about 10m from "La Faim du Tigre", and as I was there and wanted to have it on video, I moved the crashpad and my stuff over there.

I remember that back then, I really had a lot of trouble with the mantle topout.
Today, however, the dyno took me some more tries, but once I made the jump and held on to the slopey hold on the top, I mantled it out with much ease.
The grade probably will be correct, but now it felt easy. The long rest on my holiday has done me good after all.

Fontainebleau - Jean des Vignes - La Volte-Face (direct) 7B




For my short after diner evening session, I set off to an isolated boulder in Roche au Four.
The steep overhang with "Nuit Debout" is visually one of the nicest boulders around, according to me.

It is strange that it took so long to be discovered as it it can be found at about 50m left of the path when walking towards the 95.2 area, right across "Symbiose".
Fact is that when seeing the boulder from the path, the overhang is not that visible.

I tried "Nuit Debout (gauche)" some weeks ago, but I gave up on it quickly, deeming it too morpho.
This evening was no different, except for my approach. I used an intermediate sloper low left and slowly worked my way up.
The undercling under the roof for the right hand however, cut deep into my skin and hurt more and more as I got my left hand higher up the arete. It becomes morpho after the second move, putting the right hand under more and more pressure as you go.

All in all, it took me about an hour to do it. This felt really hard for the grade, and deserves to my humble opinion an upgrade to 7A+. It felt much harder than "La Faim du Tigre", but I think that the morpho part makes a big difference.

I am scratched, bruised and hurt, but I'm loving it! I'm back!

Fontainebleau - Roche au Four - Nuit Debout (gauche) 7A


No comments:

Post a Comment