July 24, 2023 - Unraveling mysteries.

There are a few problems that have always been a mystery to me. One of them being "Katagena" in Gorge aux Châts, or at least the original sitstart as done my Manuel Marquès at the time. Starting with the crimps under the overhang and both feet deep always seemed impossible. It seems that there one or two broken holds under the overhang and possibly made it way more difficult to start as Manuel originally did, at least for the grade that it was supposed to be.
Bart (Van Raaij) noticed that too, and has done a logic standing start at the lip of the overhang, giving it 7A+. For me personally, this felt closer to 7A than 7A+ as I was able to flash it starting that way.

Fontainebleau - Gorge aux Châts - Katagena 7A+

When I decided to use the left part of the pedestal for the feet, it made the moves towards the lip possible, but for some reason, I found the second part that I flashed minutes before, suddenly much harder and it made me rethink my first impression of the standing start being 7A. Coming from the sitstart and using the left part of the pedestal for the feet seemed like soft 7B or hard 7A+. 

Fontainebleau - Gorge aux Châts - Katagena (assis avec le socle gauche) 7B(7A+)

Another one of those mystery problems, "Piège à Loup", happens to be down the hill near "Katagena", and for Bart it turned out to be a similar mystery. Starting with both hands on the low horizontal crimp in the overhang feels totally impossible, especially for the given grade. No matter what I ever tried, even starting with one hand on the crimp and the other on the arete on the right, there was no way to get away from there. Bart did another start with the arete for the right hand and a high sloper for the left. Trying it this way, I did it on my second attempt and can't say that it was harder than soft 7B this time. It feels however, more like doing a static start of "L'Evasion du Loup", hence I decided to name it as such as in my humble opinion, it differs too much from the "Piège à Loup", if it was actually ever done in the way it is described. I have my serious doubts about that.

Fontainebleau - Gorge aux Châts - L'Evasion du Loup (départ statique) 7B(7A+)

Being right above the boulder of "Chien Errant", and still eager to climb some more, I decided to try that one, despite it being a long traverse. It was a good occasion to work a bit on my poor endurance and anti-style.
The only time that I tried this traverse many years ago, I always fell already just after the first corner. This time, I could easily get to the last part where the hardest two moves are, basically the crux of this whole traverse. After falling at the same spot four times in a row, I was pumped, but decided to give a last attempt, really focusing on my breathing time. It seemed to have helped, because it was the attempt that I made it to the end and topped out.

Fontainebleau - Gorge aux Châts - Chien Errant 7A+