Thursday, July 16, 2020

July 16, 2020 - Heel-click by convention.

Dave (Olbrechts), a friend from my hometown in Belgium, is camping in the area with his wife and kids. As I was meeting up with him this afternoon to do some mountain biking, the climb this morning in Franchard Hauts Sablons was not very long.
Just after the lockdown on a rainy morning, I did a walk around the area there and had noticed this small overhanging boulder right next to the Route du Louvard. It was obviously already cleaned, and looked like it had been tried, but as I couldn't find any information about it and didn't want to "steal" anyone's project, I quickly forgot about it. Until a few days ago, some lines on it were published on bleau.info. Opened by Jason Kester and Helen Dudley, who live in the nearby village of Arbonne-la-ForĂȘt.

Looking like my style of climbing, it seemed an obvious choice to start with "Beefeater".
When watching Jason's video of the first ascent, I actually found it quite funny how it ended with him doing a heel-click on top of the boulder, mentioning that the ascent is only valid when doing the same. In a way, it opens up the discussion about some conventions that are defined by openers sometimes, but I don't want to go there.
Very nice problem this one! Even with the heel-click.

Fontainebleau - Franchard Hauts Sablons - Beefeater 7B




On the same boulder, same place to start, but with both hands in the crack and finishing directly, "Sentry Post" took me only three attempts, but I have to admit that I had to pull quite hard.
Nice boulder!

Fontainebleau - Franchard Hauts Sablons - Sentry Post 7A


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