The terrace of my home looked promising this morning and I was eager to back to Rocher des Demoiselles to finish the beautiful "Home". The path towards the area looked more dry than earlier this week and I was motivated even more by it. The motivation quickly turned into fear when I entered the area and noticed the first few boulders to be wet by condensation. I was lucky though and found "Home" in a suitable state for trying. I worked out some of the moves again, tweaking the method a bit and quickly found one that required less power than the method that I tried a few days ago. I only needed three attempts now to make my way to the top of "Home", a true beauty when you like steep overhanging compression moves on bad slopers.
Fontainebleau - Rocher des Demoiselles - Home 7B+(7B)
On the way back, I stopped at and tried "L'Eveil du Sphinx (assis)", but after three times falling off the very last move, I decided to call it a day and went back home. The year ended well for me.
It was forecasted to start raining early afternoon and I had planned to do some work in the garden, so I spent the whole morning doing just that. When it still hadn't rained by 14h, I was doubting between going for a climb or just doing a walk a walk in the forest. I chose the first, as that involved some walking as well. My body felt quite soar from the days before, so I decided to go for something not too hard in the nearby Justice de Noisy. When I entered the area, and felt the state of the boulders, it turned out to be quite some good conditions thanks to the fair amount of wind that blowing through the trees. On the spot, instead of going straight to "Le Grand Collisionneur", I decided to try "Psychologique" again. Having tried it a few times in Summer, it was too warm for me to even stick the second move. Those very bad slopers do require good conditions. Thanks to the good conditions, I was suddenly able to stick the second move and I started to believe in sending. I tried a couple of methods, but in the end it was the quite unusual method from Maxime Baroud that got me to the top.
Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - Psychologique 7C(7B+)
Still motivated by the send of "Psychologique", I walked on to "Grand Collisionneur", of which I had intended to come and try the sitstart. I could have flashed it, but due to bad foot placement, I only did it on my second attempt. Nice problem, but quite easy for the grade, at least with such good conditions.
Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - Grand Collisionneur (assis) 7A+
My plan was to go to Rocher des Demoiselles, where I had selected a couple of boulders to try. I warmed up in "Tri Sélectif", which I was able to finish quickly.
Fontainebleau - Rocher des Demoiselles - Tri Sélectif 7B(7A+)
Next up was the beautiful "Home", of which I was able to work out all the moves and do the problem in two overlapping parts. Unfortunately, my skin was worn out and I wasn't able to finish it from the start. I will gladly go back for that beauty.
Even though it had rained a bit during the night, the situation didn't look hopeless this morning. There was a mild wind and depending on the choice of area to go for a climb, one could potentially be lucky. My choice for Petit Rempart and the far end of Cuvier Rempart seemed to be a good one. Dry boulders with quite good conditions. After having tried a few other problems, I ended up at the "Vu" boulder, on which I wanted to try "J'avais pas Vu", with a hard exit on very bad slopers. The conditions were in favor and I quickly made good progression, but I had quite some difficulty to do the far move left hand near the end. Climbing on such bad slopers and requiring a lot of body tension, I felt I was approaching my energy reserves after a while and even though I had been able to do all the moves, including the topout, I was starting to doubt that I would be able to send it today. After a short break and some persistence, I squeezed everything out, and made my way to the top. It was close to failing, as it felt like I could come out any moment near the end, but I didn't want to let go anymore and struggled my way up.
Fontainebleau - Cuvier Rempart - J'avais pas Vu 7C
Merry Christmas! I was lucky to find one dry and climbable boulder, and even more to find that the conditions on it were pretty good. That's all folks.
We didn't see much of the heavy snow fall that was announced earlier this week but we did have a small layer of about one centimeter. As it was freezing cold the whole week and no more precipitation, it wasn't wet, but the choice of climbable boulders was mild. The small layer of snow that covered most of the boulders didn't melt but a small layer of ice had formed between the snow and the rock. Slapping off the snow was in most cases not enough to be able to have a doable topout. Yesterday, I did manage to work out moves of "Entrée de Game (assis)" and could climb from the sit into the standing start. Despite the good conditions of the friction, I had lost quite some skin. Christophe (Laumone) showed how good the conditions were by doing the first ascent of "Gengis Khan (assis)". This morning, with only -6°C when I arrived at the Dame Jouanne area, it was extremely cold. Knowing how quickly my toes are freezing with that icy temperature, I knew that I didn't have to go anything that would likely take me too long. I therefor chose for "L'Etoile Filante", a boulder that seemed to fit my style and wasn't too exposed. Even though it looked less hard than it turned out to be, the hardest battle was the one against freezing toes. I was glad that it didn't take me too long.
Looking for "Attention à la Branche", I turned up at "Just Do It", realizing that I didn't find the first. I must have walked right passed it without noticing. I decided to stay where I was and just try "Just Do It". I only needed two attempts, but was caught by surprise by the tricky topout, especially with these icy and snowy conditions. I didn't rush myself though and took a minute for a possible and safe way up. It was sketchy, but in the end I just did it and grabbing the moss under the snow, struggled myself on top of the boulder.
My initial plan was to go and try "La Tour de Babel" in Dame Jouanne, but when I arrived at the boulder and took my phone out of my pocket, I noticed that Pieter had sent me a message when I was driving. Bram (Honorez) was with him, and they wanted to go and try "Le Dolmen du Divin" in Rocher de Milly. I was at that boulder a few weeks ago and had worked out the moves of "Entrailles" which exits on the right. Working out the method had taken such a long time though, that I couldn't finish it anymore from the start. As the boulder is at a half hour walk from the parking, I was very tempted to join them as it would spare me from carrying two crashpads that whole way. I gave "La Tour de Babel" a few tries, but quickly told myself that it was too morpho for the time being and used it as an excuse to pack up and drive back to join Pieter and Bram to try "Entrailles". While they were working on "Le Dolmen du Divin", I quickly tried the separate moves of "Entrailles", using a completely different method than what I had seen on the few videos of it on the web, at least for the last part. I did the separate moves quicker than expected and was able to send "Entrailles" on my first attempt when coming from the start. Leaving "La Tour de Babel" to join Pieter and Bram had proven to have been totally worth it.
Last Sunday it remained wet all day, so I continued the work in my barn. I managed to remove the old wooden door in front of the high window. I also put in the plexiglass and filled up the open edges with isolation foam. I was amazed by the amount of daylight that is now able to light up the barn. I don't even have to put the light on anymore during the day. I still have to do some finishing touches, but that will be for the upcoming weekend.
Finally, some natural light in my barn.
Speaking of light, there wasn't very much of it today. A thick fog covered the whole region and I had to carefully choose where to try my chances for a possible climb. It turned that I had made a good choice to go to "La Fosse aux Oreilles" in Drei Zinnen. Even there in the area, it looked like it was the only boulder that was dry enough to climb. I had tried it very briefly long ago but couldn't even get out of the small cave as I didn't think of the kneebar possibility. After seeing a video of it, I now knew about the kneebar and started working out the moves. I had only brought one crashpad though and made quite a bad fall onto the rock below when trying the moves higher up. It was only then that I wisely decided to go back to the car to get a second crashpad. Protected by both crashpads, I felt much more relaxed while climbing and quickly found a method for the upper part as well. The send followed pretty soon after. On my way back home, I still had a walk through the Gorge aux Châts area, but there was nothing of interest that was dry enough to climb.
Fontainebleau - Drei Zinnen - La Fosse aux Oreilles 7B+(7B)
It rained yesterday and last night, so everything was soaking wet this morning. It didn't bother me much because I had also planned to build a big window to replace an old crooked wooden door that covered an opening in my barn at a height of about three meters; presumably used long ago to enter hay at a time the house was still a farm. After several hours of work, the frame was fixed and as good as everything prepared to remove the door and put in the plexiglass tomorrow. It was already well in the afternoon, and as it hadn't rained anymore since last night, it looked like there was a small window to maybe, just maybe, find a dry piece of rock to climb on.
Making a window.
Instead of my original plan to go to the quick drying area of 91.1, I changed my mind when I parked the car and decided to go the high part of Justice de Noisy closer to the parking. There is a new problem that was published this week, opened on a boulder that I knew had a big chance of being dry. I turned out to be lucky, as the line of "Bourg-des-Comptes (droite)" was dry enough, except for the flat topout. I worked out the moves separately as a warmup and sent the problem barely twenty minutes after my arrival.
Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - Bourg-des-Comptes (droite) 7A+
