July 08, 2017 - From the beach to the forest.

As some may know, I have spent the past week surfing in Biarritz with my oldest son Anthony.
It was our first time ever that we were going to surf and as eager as we were, we arrived in a storm that lasted two days and surfing was impossible.
On the third day it finally cleared up and we were able to go into the ocean with our own surfboard that we had bought in the meantime.
It was impossible to get behind the higher waves. They were simply too brutal and the fact that no other surfers were out there made us realise that the ocean was maybe still too rough after the storm and we kept our hopes of riding a wave alive.
It was only the day after that we heard from another surfer that the waves appeared to be up to 4m(!) high. That explained why we were so impressed.
The following days, however, the ocean calmed down and we were able to surf down many 1m-1,5m high waves after little practice.
On the last day we went to a nearby lake where we went down some mega waterslides before being catapulted meters into the air and into the lake.
Even though it was a lot of fun, I did overstretch a muscle or tendon near my left "musculus deltoideus" (the muscle between the upper arm and the shoulder) when coming down into the water.

We arrived back home yesterday late afternoon in an intense heat, I was too tired to climb already and my arm still hurt too much, but I was so glad to be back in the forest again!
So, this morning, I left early to the shady area of Rocher Canon, trying to avoid the extreme heat later today.

I tried quite some problems, but either the sun was too disturbing, the rock already too warm or there were moves that hurt my muscle injury too much. Until I passed by "Le Chaînon Manquant".
The problem was nicely in the shade from morning to evening, so the it didn't feel warm and, to say the least, for once it was completely dry.
Besides the weird crossover move at the start, it didn't seem to hurt to my arm, so I started with some real attempts.
It didn't take long until I was able to grab the last hold, but didn't know what to do in the end, so topped out with the tree at first to have a look on the top.
It was a good idea, because it did require some cleaning to make some slopers useable for the topout.
It went down on my next attempt.
Beautiful problem, but probably morpho for the shorter climbers.

Fontainebleau - Rocher Canon - Le Chaînon Manquant (avec l'arête) 7B

It started to really heat up now and on my way back to the car, I knew that I would find "Jour de Pluie" in the shade.
I tried it once with Neil (Hart) a couple of years ago, but failed to top out.
Now, I could have flashed it but failed again on the topout. I had lost too much time figuring out what to do.
I made it on my second attempt but still not without a fight.
Very nice problem with an easy start and a nasty topout!

Fontainebleau - Rocher Canon - Jour de Pluie (raccourci) 7A

It was almost noon when I arrived at the car, and it was already 31°C in the shade.

Too hot for climbing and besides that, I had planned to work a lot in the garden anyway during my vacation.