Sunday, February 26, 2017

February 26, 2017 - I "Kendo" that.

I still felt quite tired, had difficulties waking up completely this morning and had trouble finding a suitable problem to go try.
My initial thought was to try "Mach 4" in Marlanval and I stuck with that in the end.
That was until I was standing in front of the boulder, only to find it wet.

I had to improvise a change of plan and came up with the idea of spending some time in "Pinchy Way" on the same boulder of "La Cuvette" that I did yesterday in Rocher des Mariniers.
Yesterday I had checked out some of the moves, but found it to difficult and I didn't want to spend too much time on it.
I felt relaxed and I didn't mind going back to that cosy isolated spot in the forest. Even if "Pinchy Way" wouldn't work out, at least I would have spent a nice moment in complete solitude.

The convention of "Pinchy Way", is to do the problem without using the big hold of "La Cuvette", which is not a real hold, but more like a flat sloper.
Anyway, "Pinchy Way (sans convention)" (just a name I gave for the video) is easier with the big hold, but still harder than "La Cuvette" and in my opinion good enough for 7A+.
Time will tell if the non eliminate version will be published on bleau.info or not.

Fontainebleau - Rocher des Mariniers - Pinchy Way (sans convention) 7A+




After having done that version, I needed a fair amount of time to work out all the separate moves of the original "Pinchy Way", and especially to figure them out.
I really took my time, took short breaks and memorised every movement. There was no room for error. It all felt really hard, even with such good conditions concerning friction.

When each move felt confident, I took another short break, played some Candy Crush and cleaned the holds before I go for a real attempt.
For a moment my confidence started to fade when I wasn't able to do the first anymore a few times, but then as soon I stuck it, I executed every move perfectly and climbed to the top.

I gave this five stars on bleau.info. For me this is a true gem.
Hard but beautiful moves!

Fontainebleau - Rocher des Mariniers - Pinchy Way 7B(7B+)




It had been a while that I felt this excited about having done a masterpiece like "Pinchy Way". The day already felt like success.
It was only 14h by then but I called it a day because I had promised our old neighbour to help her out in her garden a bit.
While driving however, I still felt this urge, this need, to climb and after some thought gave in and decided to stop at Mont Pivot to try "Kendo" a few times.
Despite feeling tired, I also felt strong today and I was still driven by adrenalin leftovers from doing "Pinchy Way". I was motivated.
The only thing that I didn't look forward to, was the very steep and sometimes sketchy path up the hill of Mont Pivot.

I had spent a couple of short sessions in "Kendo" together with Bram (Honorez) over a year ago and it became kind of our mutual project.
We both tried various methods, out of which the dyno method is the most common, but weren't able to finish it off yet.

After a long and heavy uphill hike, I found "Kendo" in the worst condition that I had ever seen.
The crimp in the overhang was dark and greasy and it didn't feel dry at all.
In other circumstances I would have turned around and look for something else, but besides "Pancras", that was already occupied, there is nothing else in the near surroundings, so I stayed anyway and see how it would go.

The crimp turned out to be not too bad if only I dried it as good as I could before each attempt.
I first focussed on the dyno, knowing that I hadn't been able to stick it before, but at least it's a fun thing to try over and over if needed.
But then suddenly, after a lot of changing footholds and technique, I jumped and made a big swing while I held onto the finger jug.
Now I knew that I could do it, as long as the crimp would stay dry long enough for me to grab it, fix it and pull really hard on while jumping to a very far blind hold.

No more than two tries later, I stuck the jump again after doing the sitstart and steadily climbed all way to the end. It felt great! Very unexpected.

Fontainebleau - Mont Pivot - Kendo 7C




On my way back down from Mont Pivot, I had to think of Jo (Montchaussée), from who I know that he likes to come to the boulder with the "Recherche en Platernité" series.
Five traverses from 7A up to 7C all opened by him.
The boulder is located near the bottom of the slope, right next to the red path.
When I approached the boulder, I could hear a voice and immediately knew it was Jo himself, the impersonation of eternal youth.

He and his wife Françoise had just returned from a climbing and bouldering trip in the United States and felt tired from it.
After seeing the pictures that he showed me, I could imagine why, but I couldn't imagine him being tired when I saw him crawling through one of the traverses like a spider.

Jo on one of the "Recherche de Platernité" traverses in Mont Pivot.

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