Sunday, October 9, 2016

October 09, 2016 - Two generations.

David (Evrard) has opened a new mini area in Rocher des Etroitures near the bivouac of Bourron-Marlotte and my plan was to check it out.
More or less knowing David's grading, it promised to be tight, but I didn't expect it to be this tight!

After walking the wrong direction for a while, due to confusion on the access description, I arrived at the area.
It was a big detour, but the walk was nice.

Going the wrong (but nice) way.


The main boulder of "Prosper" is a big one and has several lines on it.
Opened as a 6C+(7A), "Black Hills" is the easiest, so I set off trying that first, to get into it.
It turned out to become a 22 minutes struggle to the top, with some hard falls and loosing lots of skin.

It was only 13°C but sunny and the slopers were in good condition, but still this felt really hard.
Even after doing it, but just barely, I stand my case that this is much harder than the proposed grade, I would even dare to say hard 7A+!
Hard from start to end.

Fontainebleau - Rocher des Etroitures - Black Hills 6C+(7A)




I briefly tried some of the other lines, but I had lost a lot of skin and energy on "Black Hills", so I started gathering my stuff to move it 20m further, to the small boulder with "Mi-Septembre".
Suddenly I heard a voice saying my name and when I looked up, I saw Jean-Pierre (Roudneff) coming from around the boulder.
He had left his bag and pads at "Mi-Septembre" and had a look around. It was a nice coincidence to meet him there and we both ended up trying "Mi-Août".
It starts and climbs as for "Mi-Septembre", but exits about one meter earlier in the slab.

Jean-Pierre managed to do it quite quickly and with a nice, steady, easy, smooth style so typical for Bleausards from his generation.
It's not my style, but there's just no other way to do it than his.
It took me a lot more tries than him though!

A bit less tight graded, but I think that 7A would be more on the spot.
The first climber in the video is Jean-Pierre.

Fontainebleau - Rocher des Etroitures - Mi-Août 6C+(7A)


No comments:

Post a Comment