Saturday, September 4, 2021

September 04, 2021 - When it clicks.

I had quite some boulders written down for my visit to Rocher du Mauvais Passage, and "Peter Pan (assis)" was on top of it. Being one of the first boulders in the area, it was also the first stop that I made. 
Having done the standing start already more than five years ago, I started with trying those moves again first, but the high sloper right hand felt slippery. We did have a huge amount of rain yesterday evening, but as the soil was very dry, it didn't look like it had been that bad here. The air pressure felt high and humid, and it was already very warm at 10h30, so that could have been the cause too. Persistence paid off though and when the sloper finally stuck, I was quickly able to the next dynamic move to the left too. My confidence was back, but working out the moves from the sitstart into the stand wasn't a giveaway. 
After some time, everything just clicked and I finished my main goal of the day.

Fontainebleau - Rocher du Mauvais Passage - Peter Pan (assis) 7C(7B+)



As I didn't feel like wading too much through the high ferns that covered the ways to other boulders that I had on my list, I decided to leave those for later in the year when the ferns are almost gone, so continued on to what must be the furthest boulder of the area, "Equinox", just below the top of the hill and high above the boulder with "L'Afrique".
I tried "Equinox" once over five years ago, but remembered that I couldn't do much on it. Probable because I had only one crashpad with me then. Today though, I did do the effort to bring two crashpads, which boosted my confidence.
It was getting hot by then, so I took my time to work out move by move and when I felt that it clicked, I only needed a handful of attempts from the start to also tick this beauty off.

Fontainebleau - Rocher du Mauvais Passage - Equinox 7B+



Being very confident, I had a look at the lower start, which adds about three to four moves on good holds into the start of the former. I cleaned the holds, but as I sweating a lot, I took a longer brake. It was during the brake that I was reminded of turning off the camera in between climbs when I heard it making a muffled click. It was the click of turning itself off due to empty battery.
In most circumstances, I would have probably left with the intention to come back for the lower start of "Equinox", but as I had put a lot of effort in carrying both crashpads all the way up the hill in this heat, it wasn't something that I felt like doing again soon.
The low start, followed soon after my brake, but unfortunately no video. I will probably not come back for this alone again, but I'm sure that when Pieter is back in shape, he would like to give this a try too. I will use that occasion to capture the low start on video.

No comments:

Post a Comment