February 02, 2018 - The ivory tower.

Every day since last Saturday was dominated by rain again, but today finally we had some sunny periods until late afternoon.
There was a 40% chance of rain and some of that had passed over the town of Montereau where I work, so everything was wet when I finished at 16h.
In the distance, I could see that the sky over the forest looked more clear and looking at the direction the clouds were going, I knew that the rain had passed there already. But there was still time to dry.
I calculated that the time needed to get to Gorge aux Châts would leave me with about 45 minutes of daylight left for climbing. At least, if it was dry enough already.

Arriving at "La Tour d'Ivoire", I was delighted to see that the overhanging boulder kept the holds underneath it perfectly dry.
The topout looked slippery but knowing that I was at least going to be able to practice the first part felt great on itself. I was finally going to move on rock again.
As a warmup, I tried the 6B standing start and discovered a method to do the dynamic move almost statically.
It motivated me, because I knew at that moment that a send could follow any time soon.

"La Tour d'Ivoire" has a really hard start with a small and painful undercling crimp and I remember that I once looked at it for the first time years ago, wondering how it was even possible.
It felt like a real victory standing on top of the boulder about half an hour later.

Fontainebleau - Gorge aux Châts - La Tour d'Ivoire 7C