May 16, 2021 - Hidden in plain sight.

The amount and sort of garden work that I have been doing during the past weeks is starting to take its toll and my body and energy levels, which affects my climbing. The past couple of days, the weather has been very unpredictable, so I used the occasion to not climb yesterday, but did go for a walk around Justice de Noisy. Laurent (Darlot) was there, tempting his chances during a dry window, but had to wait a while for the boulder that he wanted to start with, to dry, so I hung around for a couple of minutes to have a nice chat. While talking, he advised me about a nice prow that was opened by Tony (Fouchereau), at only about 50m from the "Vandale" boulder in Rocher Cailleau. He looked quite convincing when saying how beautiful it is, so I headed over there immediately after our short conversation.
Laurent hadn't been lying, far from it even. I found the big beautiful prow at only a stone throw away from the boulder with "Vandale" and "Alien". Amazing how this could beauty could have remained hidden in plain sight for so long.
I admired the boulder for a few minutes, imagined some possible lines and went back home to browse Tony's Instagram account (bleautony) for more information. It took quite some scrolling down his feed before I finally found the videos of his ascents on that boulder, posted already a year ago.

This morning, the weather looked grey and humid, and the forecast looked rainy all day long. It wasn't raining yet when I got out of bed, so I prepared and left for whatever time I could grasp to climb on the boulder that I admired so much yesterday.
The prow was dry, but the slopey crimps on the right face were humid, making the crux trying not to slip off. My attempts to speed up the drying process seemed to help, because in the end I did find just enough friction to work my way to the top of "Esthétique (direct)".
Still some more nice variations to do, but the compression climbing started to take its toll. Just in time, because when I was driving home, the first heavy rain shower of the day made everything soaking wet.

Fontainebleau - Rocher Cailleau - Esthétique (direct) 7B