Tuesday, November 1, 2016

November 01, 2016 - No more secrets.

There was a dense fog this morning, and everything looked humid when Steven (Demets) and I were on our way to Mont Simonet, hoping to find dry boulders there.
My mindset was "I'll see what we climb and maybe climb what we see". There was no pressure.

Our first stop was at the boulder of "Le Triathlète".
I had tried it on my last visit, but somehow had difficulties to reach and hold the vertical crimp far left.
Today it gave me no problems and after a handful of tries it was done and left me wondering how I was able to stick the high sloper left hand.

Fontainebleau - Mont Simonet - Le Triathlète 7A+




Minutes after, Steven tested and succeeded in testing his mantle skills by topping out the 6A "La Fissure Diago". He still has them, with shaky legs though.

We then moved to the "Duke Nukem" boulder down the hill where I still managed to flash the 6C+(6C) "Fais Gaffe où tu Mets tes Pieds".

I proposed Steven to walk on towards Mont Blanc about 500m down the path, which he gladly agreed to.
After showing him around, his attention was fixed on the 6C dyno "Arnaud Airlines".
It turned out to be more difficult as we expected, but we both sent it 20 minutes later.
We took our time to look at some more boulders and in the end decided to pass through Mont Simonet again on our way back to the car.

It was only when Steven asked me which problem on the boulder to the right of "Pitt Boule" was, that I noticed that the sitstart is a 7A(7A+) called "L'Homo ça Pince".
I wondered why I never tried this on any of my previous visits, because it did look really nice.
Some other climbers were trying it, so we decided to go for "La Colonne". A very nice looking 6C(6C+) that I was able to do on my second attempt and of which Steven did the standing start, but didn't have the power anymore for the sit.
The many tries and climbs he did over the last 2 days were taking its toll after 3 years of no climbing.

In the meantime, the couple that was trying "L'Homo ça Pince", was taking a break and was wandering around.
They had left their pads so Steven encouraged me to take my chance and put on my shoes and give it a go.
Before I was able to try, the couple returned but had no problem with me using their pads.
I asked for some beta, which I was given, and flashed the problem without using any of the beta given. I did it my instinctive way and it turned out fine.

Fontainebleau - Mont Simonet - L'Homo ça Pince 7A(7A+)




It was fun to climb with Steven again after so long.
It looked like he enjoyed it to be back in the forest and doing what he has done good for so long, bouldering on the soft sandstone of Fontainebleau.
I'm pretty sure that it will not take another 3 years again before he comes back.

At home, I noticed that a new area called "Oncy sur Ecole Nord" was published today.
It turned out to be the 'secret' area that my wife, Sandra, had discovered early 2014, located in a small part of the forest across the fields behind my house.
Me and some friends had brushed quite some boulders there and I did the first ascent of "Noah's Ark", named after my youngest son Noah, and graded it 7A+.

Weeks later, Stéphane Denys wrote me that it was actually a rediscovery and a reopening of the problem and the area.
It turned out that the area had already been brushed by mostly David Evrard and Philippe Dumez years before.
They had even made a small topo of it, but as the area is located on private grounds and is hunting grounds in due season, it was never published on bleau.info.
So the lack of climbers knowing about the area, gave nature it's course and covered the boulders again with a thick layer of vegetation throughout the years.
Until today.

That's why I'm now including the video of my ascent of the problem that for me will always be known as "Noah's Ark" in the secret area, but from now on commonly will be referred to as "Empressement" in Oncy sur Ecole Nord.
The video dates from April 18th, 2014.
It's the most beautiful problem of the area, a very high slopey arete that takes some guts to top it out all the way.

It is a must do and no longer a secret.

Fontainebleau - Oncy sur Ecole Nord - Empressement 7A(7A+)


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