November 09, 2025 - Denecourt n°10.

It's Autumn, and despite the still sometimes quite high temperature, the season is well represented by rain, humidity, and fog. Not good ingredients for good climbing days at all, but I try to get the short climbing windows where I see them.
Yesterday, I was going to meet Olaf, Jan and Tom for another session on "Bleau's Heart", but the rain came earlier than expected and we ended up walking around Petit Rempart instead, after which Jan and Tom decided to drive back home as the forecast didn't look good for the next day neither.

This morning there was very dense fog and everything looked wet outside. I still met with Olaf, but with the idea to do the blue walk around Rocher d'Avon, following the Sentier Denecourt n°10, from start to end. 
Even though it there was still a dense fog and the forest looking soaking wet, it wasn't raining, so I decided to take my climbing shoes, chalk bag and my thin Black Diamond Gapstopper pad that I could carry by hand. Out of experience with this kind of weather, I know that chances are low, but still existent to find a dry boulder here and there.
Already quite soon, we could see some dry boulders, in even quite good conditions, while others almost next to them were soaking wet. We couldn't see any pattern as to why that would be, but hey, at least we knew that there was some potential. As we were there to walk the whole blue path, I waited long , but as Olaf insisted, I decided to go for it on "Mekkera", near the end of the walk.
I had tried "Mekkera" the first time around 2013, but wasn't able to do it. It never became a real project, but over the years, I did try it again briefly maybe two times or so while being in the area for other reasons. I didn't have any expectations, but I thought it was worth another shot.

The dyno of "Mekkera" is not very far, but the position to push off from is very awkward and requires to move your body in a strange way in order to reach the top of the boulder. The hardest part though, is holding the big swing after catching the edge.
Somehow, this time, I could immediately feel that there was potential for doing it, and I got closer with each attempt. Then, suddenly, I managed to hang on while catching the swing and topped out. 
It was a nice little bonus to a wonderful walk through the forest with good friend Olaf and his dog Iva.

Fontainebleau - Rocher d'Avon Ouest - Mekkera 7A