January 14, 2024 - Deep freeze.

It's a well known fact that cold temperatures enhance the friction of the sandstone boulders a lot, and therefor, I always embrace them. When they stay below freezing during the day however, I like it a bit less. I am not very good in coping with freezing temperatures because despite clothing myself accordingly, my toes quickly feel numb from the cold and once that happens, there's no way I can get them warm again. This was one of those weekends.
As I had to work again, I seem to have missed out on the most ideal conditions, cold and dry with a shining sun. It was quite frustrating looking through the window from my desk, but the weekend looked quite promising, so I was patient. Yesterday and today, the temperatures remained below freezing though and I had a hard time keeping my toes warm. I didn't top out anything yesterday and even though I got really close to sending "Rudiments (direct)", fell of the mantle at least ten times, I had to give up due to totally numb toes and unable to feel anything anymore.
This morning, it was even colder than yesterday, but I went back to Apremont Portes du Désert anyway, not with the intention to try "Rudiments (direct)" again, but rather to try the very slopey "Le Combat de Trop", a problem that requires sticky conditions, the main reason why I had never tried it before.
It didn't take me extremely long, but long enough for my toes to feel numb, making the the topout feel quite sketchy as I couldn't feel anything beneath my toes.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Portes du Désert - Le Combat de Trop 7B

My skin felt better than yesterday and with that perception, I decided to make another stop at "Rudiments (direct)". Just before leaving yesterday, I had noticed a small shallow mono pocket to use at the mantle, but as my feet were completely numb, I couldn't even get there anymore. Using the mono, I was able to finish it on my first attempt of today.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Portes du Désert - Rudiments (direct) 7B