My skin was able to grow back a only a little bit yesterday and today during the day, but the motivation for some climbing after work in this beautiful weather was so high that I couldn't resist.
I wanted to try the new "Saotoubi (assis)" in Apremont Ouest, but there was already a small group of climbers that had the same idea apparently, and as I didn't feel like disturbing anyone, I had to quickly change my plan.
On the way, I had stopped briefly at "Naine Blanche", thinking I could maybe try it again on my way back if there was still time.
That way back came sooner than expected, but at least now I could take my time for it.
It was a few weeks ago that Bart (Van Raaij) had told me that it might be my style, but I couldn't even jump properly, so gave up on it quickly. I had other plans anyway that day.
Now was different though and it kind of instantly became a goal to go for.
Those bad slopers where you have to jump to, burnt my fingers every time I didn't stick them, but scraped off.
The moment I was able to deadpoint them just enough, I finished it.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Ouest - Naine Blanche 7C+(7C)
When I looked back at all the climbing that I was able to do during my time off work from last Friday until today, I had to admit that I couldn't complain at all, on the contrary.
Especially taken into account that I repeated quite some problems but didn't film them because I already had a video of them.
Except for "Mucho Bueno (assis)" in Rocher des Souris, that I still managed to squeeze out using my last bits of power and final layer of skin that only had one night for it to grow back as much as possible.
The boulder of "Mucho Bueno" is very isolated and well hidden, especially during Spring and Summer, when the boulder gets surrounded by big ferns.
It was in the midst of Summer 2015 when I had finally found it after looking for it for several evenings in a row. I remember that I was disappointed to do it on my first attempt after quickly working out the moves back then, but was also relieved that I didn't have to the effort again for finding the boulder back. I can't remember why I didn't have it on video, but for some reason, I didn't.
Wanting to have it on video was one of the reasons why I did try to find the boulder back for a few times, but never managed to find it again until today, when I walked more or less straight to it when walking past the boulder of "Squeeze Me". I didn't bring any climbing shoes, nor crashpad though, but as I still had the light Drop Zone in the car, the effort for going back to get some gear was left to a minimum.
I wasn't able to do it on my first attempt this time, but needed a lot more. The pain on the skin of my fingertips was almost unbearable, but the motivation was greater and I knew it was going to be the last effort of my short period off work.
Fontainebleau - Rocher des Souris - Mucho Bueno (assis) 7A
I still went climbing with my kids later in the afternoon, but didn't do anything harder than blue ones though.
One of the small areas that I had planned to visit again during my couple of days off, was the beautiful isolated sector of La Fontaine Sain-Bernard, on the hill right across the street of La Dame Jouanne.
A couple of new problems had been opened recently on the magnificent boulder of "Lanceur d'Alerte", so I wanted to try them out and profit from the beautiful surroundings out there.
It was funny to see that also now the standing start of "Lanceur d'Alerte", something that I had been trying since at least a year ago, as the sitstart didn't attract me a lot and the big crux was the dyno anyway.
To warm up, I quite easily flashed one the new problems, "Joie".
I must admit that even though the sun was shining nicely, there was a cold breeze and the conditions were great. On top of that, I felt in remarkably good shape.
Fontainebleau - La Fontaine Saint-Bernard - Joie 7A(6C)
This was my fourth session on the standing start of "Lanceur d'Alerte" and the amount of times that I tried to stick that bad sloper after the dyno, must be over fifty.
That sloper and the sidepull for the left hand, are so bad that it's really difficult to keep the tension and control the jump.
Great joy and much relief when I finally made it!
Fontainebleau - La Fontaine Saint-Bernard - Lanceur d'Alerte 7C
After a short break, it took me a only a handful of tries to finish "Joie (droite assis)".
Fontainebleau - La Fontaine Saint-Bernard - Joie (droite assis) 7A+
And did "Joie (assis)" immediately after it on my first attempt.
Fontainebleau - La Fontaine Saint-Bernard - Joie (assis) 7A
I had only planned to go back to "La Surfusion" in the 91.1 area tomorrow, but with these conditions of today, I wanted to make use of them.
There was some doubt if I would at first, as I didn't want to still carry the heavier Mondo pad to lowball, but the fact that I also the smaller and lighter Drop Zone with me was decisive.
"La Surfusion" kind of fits my style.
A low boulder with only a few moves, but hard one, where explosif power is required.
Those slopers are so bad though that I only lost a lot of skin on it during the few sessions that I worked in it.
Finally today, I managed to find my body position, right aim and friction to stick the first move. I didn't want to give up now.
Many tries later, I had lost so much skin that drops of blood were piercing through the fingertip of my right index finger.
I told myself that I only had one more chance now, and miraculously sent it. I paid with my blood for this.
I'm still off work until Wednesday, but it's Monday, so already before 9h, my cellphone rang. I let it go to voicemail and still didn't listen to it.
I wanted and needed to completely disconnect. One of the reasons that I chose to go the beautiful and calm area of Les Béorlots. In most sectors there, there is no cellular reception at all.
It was still quite early, and there was a light chilly breeze from time to time, but the sky was clear and the sun was already warming up the air.
I like Les Béorlots a lot, at times it even reminds of the Coquibus, the type of forest might be different, but it's also one of these areas where nature still rules.
When I approached the area, I was watching my cellphone when I made that last step into the disconnected world and it suddenly said "No Service". It felt like a relief and I enjoyed the beautiful surroundings with much more conscience. This moment was mine alone.
First I wanted to try some of the boulders that Theo Konstantakopoulos (later referred to as Theo in this post) had opened not very long ago in the Northern and Western sectors.
I don't how tall Theo is, but he must be taller than me, because morphologically, I couldn't find a way to work myself through "Test de Pression" in the North sector.
In the Ouest sector on the other hand, I quite quickly found myself on top of "Hole in One", even though not unbruised.
Fontainebleau - Les Béorlots Ouest - Hole in One 7B
Taking my time walk from sector to sector, whilst enjoying the beauty and silence, I tried some problems in between and managed to top out the very nice "Risque d'Avalanche".
Fontainebleau - Les Béorlots - Risque d'Avalanche 7B
I was almost back at the car when I had reception again and instantly a text message came in.
Luckily it was only my oldest son asking me if I could go and get him at bus station in Milly-la-Forêt after school. I'm in holiday, of course I could!
I was meeting Alberto and Pieter on the parking of the Croix St. Jerôme this morning, but it was very crowded and I was lucky to find a spot. It looked liked it was one of the last, because they had to park down the street in the village.
It was nice to also find Bram, his girlfriend Ruuth, and Stef parked there too and we all went to warm up on the nearby boulder of "Squeeze Me".
Everybody seemed to have lost a skin a lot of skin and had soared fingers, but after warming up, Pieter and I went to Rocher des Souris, while the others headed on to the 95.2 area.
Pieter wanted to try the beautiful "Kric-Crak" that I did a couple of weeks ago, but he needed some encouragement, so I showed him how to do it by repeating it on my first attempt. Those moves were still so familiar, it was as if I had climbed it only yesterday.
Pieter needed to build some confidence, but closer with every try and found himself standing on top of the boulder a bit later. I completely remember how much joy I felt when I did for the first time, and looking at him, I'm sure he felt, and still feels, the same.
We then moved back down the hill to try "Prouesse (assis)", but our fingers just couldn't cope with those razor sharp crimps anymore.
I did do some kind of variation of it by using a high crimp on the right, making it about 7A, but fun to do. You could say that it was "Prouesse (assis)" with a 'biscuit'.
I haven't found any information about this variation, so for the time being, I just called it "Prouesse Biscuit (assis)".
Fontainebleau - Rocher des Souris - Prouesse Biscuit (assis) 7A
Our last bits of energy were spent on both doing the standing start at the edge of the roof and finishing in "Yoguignol".
I had soar muscles when I woke up this morning, but Pieter and Alberto were around, and we had rendez-vous on the parking of Rocher de Corne-Biche, where we agreed to go climbing.
There were no projects in Rocher de Corne-Biche that I had waiting, but I looked forward to hang around with them and have some fun while climbing no matter what problem.
There was a dense fog in the morning, and we had to wait until early afternoon before the sun slowly started to pierce through and turn the grey in a clear blue sky.
I warmed up with a quick repeat of "Éclats (droite)" and Pieter did "Pavlova de Pont Loup" quite quickly too.
Soon after, I flash repeated "32 Millièmes", immediately followed by Pieter with a real flash for him.
Alberto was fighting some harder blue ones and seemed to be determined to do the whole circuit, a not so easy one for blue.
We worked a while in "Papa Gaga", found a method, but will need to come back for it. It was too hard for today.
Pieter and I had found the isolated boulder of "Esprit Tutélaire" relatively quickly, albeit with some luck, and decided to give it a go.
I made it on my second attempt, but repeated it again for a cleaner ascent, as my foot touched the crashpad when coming loose and I did have the feeling that it had helped me.
The second time was a clean one.
Pieter needed a few more goes, but also ticked this one off fast.
Fontainebleau - Rocher de Corne-Biche - Esprit Tutélaire 7A+(7B)
While we were deciding what boulder to go to next, we heard a loud scream that repeated itself a couple of times and Pieter jumped up thinking that Alberto or maybe another climber might have taken a bad fall.
We ran towards where the screams came from, but it turned out to be playing children. Alberto was half way the blue circuit.
The next stop was "Contorsionniste", but there seems to be a broken hold under the roof and we couldn't find a way at all to even come close.
I didn't see Alberto anymore when I left, but I'm curious to hear from him tomorrow up to where he made it on the blue circuit.
With the big go-live at work last week, I didn't have any day off for twelve days in a row and during the last seven days only, I had accumulated over sixty overtime hours.
With the situation under control now, I was in a desperate need for a timeout and was able to take a few days off to compensate for the overtime hours, with today being the first day.
Spring has only started, but the past few days were like Summer and I was delighted to finally be able to enjoy it too.
Knowing that I was going to have a lot of time for climbing today, I was highly motivated yesterday evening, and the thought of trying "La Maschette" in Rocher Canon kept lingering in my head.
As soon as the dense fog had dissipated this morning, I left to Rocher Canon and arrived at "La Maschette" around 10h.
The busy long days had completely worn me down, and I quickly realised that motivation alone wasn't enough to even remotely do "La Maschette", so I moved over to "La Théorie du Chaos" right above it, on the top of the hill.
Ever since August 2010, when Ivan (Moreels) had shown a video of Marc Lehner climbing "La Théorie du Chaos", I had wanted to try it. For many various reasons though, I had never found the occasion to actually do.
Now it just looked like a perfect spot, up there in the sun, away from the main busy area of Rocher Canon. I sort of made a promise to myself to not leave that spot until I had climbed "La Théorie du Chaos".
Based on what I had seen on Ivan's video, it looked hard, but it turned out to be even harder than that.
A first class problem that requires a lot of body tension and some balance. Beautiful boulder!
Personally, I would give this 7B+.
Fontainebleau - Rocher Canon - La Théorie du Chaos 7B
For some reason, maybe the proximity of Melun, Rocher Canon is not my favourite area, and not long after, I left, with the intention to stop somewhere else on my way home.
I decided that it would be the very calm and silent Bois Rond Auberge, so I could try "1302" again.
On previous attempts, I always slid off the bad rounded crimp for the right hand, resulting in loss of big chunks of skin scraped off the back of my fingers.
I was hesitant now, but was able to send it after barely five minutes. That was last line that I hadn't done yet in that small sector of "Didgeridoo".
Fontainebleau - Bois Rond Auberge - 1302 7B+
The timeout starts to have effect and I'm already feeling a bit disconnected. Luckily it will last for another couple of days.
More than six months ago, I started working with some colleagues in the US, on a big company IT integration project.
Tonight, at midnight my time, we will start with the actual go-live, a huge and exciting moment, but it also means working all weekend, days and nights and making sure of the aftercare next week.
Luckily, I was able to take a long break during the day, so I went out into the forest.
This morning it was still soaking wet after a whole night of rain, but there was a lot of wind and I decided to have a look at the recently opened "Le Mono Orphelin", near the top op the hill of J.A. Martin.
Out in the open and catching a lot of wind, it was dry, but the conditions weren't excitingly good, the air felt still too humid.
Don't be fooled by how easy the standing start might look.
It did give me quite some trouble and starting with the right hand on the bad vertical crimp made it feel more like a 7A.
Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Le Mono Orphelin 6C(6C+)
The sitstart basically only adds one hard dynamic move from a mono left hand to a very bad sloper.
Staying in position requires a lot of body tension and makes the next move, the first one of the standstart, much more difficult.
It took me quite some effort and the final send came as a nice surprise. I hadn't expected to send it, to be honest.
Beautiful line that could deserve an extra '+' to that grade if you ask me.
Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Le Mono Orphelin (assis) 7B
Have to prepare to pick up work again now. We're going live!
I had to be in Belgium yesterday evening, but was able to leave already quite early this morning.
There was a big wind storm all the way with gushes of wind reaching up to 120 kmph, which made the drive an almost constant struggle to keep the car in the lane it was in.
The last weather forecast I had seen for Bleau, predicted rain on Sunday, so I didn't have expectations concerning climbing.
The closer I got home, however, the clouds cleared out for the most part, and with the heavy wind, I started hoping for dry boulders. Or at least something to climbable.
It was already passed 13h when I parked at the buvette of Apremont, and it looked promising.
The air felt dry despite the rain from last night and the hard wind seemed to do a good job.
I had chosen to go back to the boulder of "L'Origine du Monde", knowing that it's facing South-West and it was exactly from that direction that the wind was coming.
The boulder was in perfect conditions and the stormy wind kept the bad slopers of "L'Origine du Monde (assis)" constantly dry between attempts.
The usage of the small stone for the feet is allowed, but seemingly lowers the difficulty with almost a grade.
It is a bit morpho though and for me this felt like a hard 7B, maybe even 7B+.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Ouest - L'Origine du Monde (assis) 7B+(7C)
The exit to the left, "L'Origine du Monde (gauche assis)" was done on my second attempt, but I must admit that I have been quite lucky there.
A much nicer line than it looked at first.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Ouest - L'Origine du Monde (gauche assis) 7B+
Afterwards, I spent at least half an hour trying "Crispr Cas9", but always fell off the very hard mantle at the end. Even when half of my body was already more or less on the boulder, I couldn't get over the balance tipping point.
It sucked the energy out of me and I needed a break.
I still wanted to climb a bit, so I decided to stop at Rocher des Souris again on the way home. See if I could get any further in the right sitstart of "Fokechnikov", something that I had tried already quite a few times by now.
The friction on the bad slopey rail was better than ever, and I finally managed to make the first (known) ascent of "Fokechnikov (assis droite)".
Sitstart on the right with a three finger undercut pocket right hand and a three finger small sidepull for the left. Catch a slopey rail on the left, match there and try get both feet over to the left to get in position for the dyno of "Fokechnikov".
Definitely not as easy or straightforward as it may seem in the video.
Depending on your morphology, I estimate this about 7B(7A+).
Fontainebleau - Rocher des Souris - Fokechnikov (assis droite) 7B(7A+)
Due to a huge long lasting project at work, with long hectic days, my head seems to be always full and hard to empty.
Even though I was finally able to go for a short half hour climb early this evening, it still felt like I was running on autopilot when I was walking down the hill of Apremont Butte aux Dames.
I had just done both jump start and the static of "Recherche Fondamentale", but still I didn't feel like I could disconnect properly.
Anyway, here's the jump start.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - Recherche Fondamentale (en jeté) 7B
And the static start.
Just a tiny bit harder, but still soft for the grade.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - Recherche Fondamentale 7B+
The weather forecast doesn't look promising for this weekend.
Due to an extremely busy schedule with very long days at work, I felt exhausted on Friday. Add to that, the fact that I had to drive for almost nine hours straight yesterday, made me feel like a zombie.
After a good and longer night of sleep, I felt better this morning, but still felt like one of the living dead.
Still, just before 10h this morning, I already left to Apremont Ouest, not being sure if the boulders would be dry after yesterday's and last night's bits of rain.
I was hoping that the strong wind and dry air would do a good enough job to allow me to climb.
To be sure, I had a look without crashpads first, but quickly realised that I would have to go back for them. Almost everything was blown dry, and even in very good conditions.
To avoid potential crowds, I had planned to try some of the new boulders opened by Tony (Fouchereau) and Thierry (Vasseur), as I knew that most of them were isolated from the main area where it can get quite busy in the weekends.
I wanted to warm up with "L'Origine du Monde", which didn't look very hard, but it did take me while before I found a good method. It wasn't as straight forward as it looked.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Ouest - L'Origine du Monde 7A(7A+)
I briefly tried the moves from the "L'Origine du Monde (assis)", but it felt too morpho and I was distracted by the nearby and also new "Crise d'Imagination". A small boulder that looked to be in my style, explosif.
Basically, this one comes down to one very hard morpho move from a tiny crimp to a very bad sloper.
Not to start any discussion or anything, but I'm quite convinced that this will feel less hard when you're taller.
Fun lowball!
The skin on my fingertips was already starting to wear off slowly, but my mind was now set on the beautiful line of "Arcobleau". I wonder if they forgot an 'H' in that name that though.
When I was working out the problem, I came to the conclusion that the standing start was very much worth the effort on itself and felt like a good 7B.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Ouest - Arcobleau 7B
I doubted if I still had enough energy left to also send the sitstart, the original problem, but I persisted to establish a near perfect flow in movement.
The last moves gave me very hard time, but after taking a longer break, I was glad to tick this beauty off. To be honest, I had already taken peace with the fact having to come back for it.
My skin was really worn now, but on the way back home, I made a quick stop at Rocher des Souris to see what I would still be worth trying some variations on the boulder of "Squeeze Me".
The only thing that I could still squeeze out though, was a logical sitstart of "Fokechnikov", making it about 6C+(7A) with the extra couple of delicate moves.
Fontainebleau - Rocher des Souris - Fokechnikov (assis) 6C+(7A)
I felt relieved and more or less alive again after this good climbing session. Ready for a new hectic week.
