Saturday, April 15, 2017

April 15, 2017 - It's a shame!

Just out of curiosity, I drove by the bivouac of the Hippodrome at 10h30 this morning.
The place didn't look as crowded as I expected, but at this time, a lot of people probably already left for climbing. There was rain announced for early afternoon.
It was a shame to see however that there were still a lot of tents pitched up in the forest next to the bivouac site and the meadow across.
I realize that there probably was no space left on the bivouac site itself, and people didn't have any other option, but the least they can do is to get up early and tidy up the tents.

By the time I parked on the small parking next to Cuvier Rempart, small rain drops had started falling out of the grey sky but not enough to make everything wet just yet.
My plan was to try some of the new problems in Cuvier Bellevue.

The first problem that I wanted to try was "Hard Jump (assis)" near the start of the small area.
On bleau.info it states that the sitstart starts with a crimp far left and a high sloper right hand. It also says that it's morpho.
It can't get more morpho than this. When sitting on the ground there was no way that I could any of the starting holds and even when sitting on the crashpad, I could just reach the left crimp but still lacked about 10cm to reach the sloper right hand.
Therefor I started more with a crouching start, keeping my body as low as possible.

The jump itself is not hard, but taking the swing is, and mantling up even harder when you don't expect it.
It was a shame to though to arrive at the boulder and find two big empty cans of Heineken right at the base of it.
I took them with me in the small plastic bag that I always have with me to keep my trash in. It's not that difficult folks!

Fontainebleau - Cuvier Bellevue - Hard Jump (assis) 7A+




Now and then the drops of rain became bigger, and fearing that it might really rain soon, I went straight to the boulder of "Isatix".
It's a beautiful high menhir shaped boulder with a couple of problems on it, "Isatix", "Isatix (droite)" and their respective sitstarts.
The boulder is quite high and there's a boulder right behind you when climbing up, but I went for it anyway, starting with the easiest, the 7A "Isatix (droite)".
The first two moves, reaching for te high crimp left hand and then reaching for the other small crimp right hand while keeping you balance, are the hardest.
As soon as your hands are on the right arete, it's only a matter of keeping calm and steadily continue to the top.

Fontainebleau - Cuvier Bellevue - Isatix (droite) 7A




Immediately after the right variation, I tried "Isatix", which has the same first two moves, but instead of going from the crimps to the right arete, you have to make a sort of dyno to the jug up left and continue to the top.
Knowing the first two moves already, it was only a matter of daring to dyno. It went down on my first attempt.
Not sure if this version deserves the extra '+' to the grade.

Fontainebleau - Cuvier Bellevue - Isatix 7A+




It was half past noon now, and I drove on to the parking of Bas Cuvier itself, knowing that the parking is todays spot where Black Diamond is having its yearly cleanup day.
I thought I'ld lend a hand, got myself equiped with a trash bag and a grabbing stick and set off to Cuvier Ouest.
From there I walked over the ridge towards the North, crossed the small valley behind Cuvier Nord and arrived back at the Black Diamond van an hour and a half later, and a 30 litres trash bag completely filled with trash.

Like I wrote last year, the Black Diamond cleanup days are a good initiative, but in the end it's a shame that these need to happen.

1 comment:

  1. Doing "Isatix" without a spotter takes nerves of steel. I would probably pass. You never seem to have anyone looking out for you.

    Littering in climbing areas is a problem all over the world. Such a shame.

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