January 13, 2018 - Condensation!

I had high hopes that the Winter wouldn't be one like we had last year, but unfortunately it's already well on its way.
Just like last weekend, and the one before, the conditions were dominated by heavy condensation due to the rising temperature. Today we even made it to 12°C!
There had been quite some wind last night though, which continued on this morning, but leaving early to 91.1 before possible rain was in vain.
Despite the wind, the boulders were still soaking wet from top to bottom, just like yesterday, and I had no choice but to do a walk again or go back home and try again later.
I chose the latter.

A few hours later, I decided to give it a try in J.A. Martin. There I was able to find one dry boulder of interest, the small one with "Le Toit du Ninja Blanc", which was catching all the wind on that small hill.
There was only one (easier) line on it that I hadn't done before, so I decided to go back to the parking and get my gear. Being almost certain that I wouldn't find any boulder in climbable condition, I had left everything in the car.
"Le Ninja Blanc Bec" isn't something I normally would  go back to the car for, but at least I would be doing something else than walking and watching one wet boulder after the other.
It was quickly done.

Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Le Ninja Blanc Bec 6C+(6C)

To keep the fun going and stay busy, I stayed for a while longer and repeated "Le Toit du Ninja Blanc" too, again.

Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Le Toit du Ninja Blanc 7A (repeat)

On the way home, I walked over to 91.1 again, but again in vain. Everything was still soaking wet!

January 04, 2019 - Just working out.

I doubted for a while before I decided to publish the below video and even name and grade it.
It was after work late this afternoon and I only had a big half an hour of enough daylight left to work out the moves of "L'Étoile Noire (assis)".
The big key hold under the roof still made made my fingertips humid, but I did manage to work out those moves enough to have an idea on how to move and even did most of them separately.
There are two hard crux moves under the roof before coming into the position where I am at the start of the video.
What follows is another hard crux move, which took me quite some before I was able to make that one. A very precise far dynamic move, much further than I had expected to be honest.
Anyway, when I was working out that dynamic precision move to the pinch, I decided to climb on and topped out when I finally stuck it.

I definitely didn't open a new variation or anything close to it, but I thought that this extra hard move to come into the original standing start felt so sweet that I decided to keep the video. For myself, but also to share with anyone who feels like watching it.
If "L'Étoile Noire" would have been opened with that start, then I think the grade would probably be about 7B.
I will not send this to any website to publish it or make it supposedly official, but if any picks this up and decides that it's worth it, then why not. It's all about having fun and working out anyway. Or at least a lot.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - L'Étoile Noire (accroupi) 7B

Have fun!

January 02, 2019 - Five days too late.

Out of the week and half of holiday I had taken, the past five consecutive ones were wet or soaking wet.
Some friends from Belgium were spending their holidays in area and I had to hear the phrase "We can always do a walk instead." way too many times. But basically, that's all that was possible in the forest those past five days.
Well, there are indeed much more things possible to do in the forest, but it definitely wasn't climbing.

Finally yesterday late in the evening when it was dark, I was able to make out some stars in the sky here and there. Like little sparkles of hope.
It meant that the sky was finally clearing up, because those past five days, it was nothing but grey, dull and dark.
Looking at the weather forecast, the next five days should be quite clear with scattered clouds and no more rain. Five days that came five days too late.
Actually, its four days too late, because as my last day of holiday was today, I was able to profit from the first signs of a drying forest.

When I went for a walk around Apremont yesterday, the boulders were heavily covered with condensation, from top to bottom and under the roofs and overhangs. It was soaking wet.
It was a big and very pleasant surprise to discover that most of the boulders of Apremont Butte aux Dames were in climbable condition.
There where it was very dry, it even stuck. But not for long though.
The conditions were good but didn't last long after being touched. Kind of what I expected, but hey, at least I was able to do something.

I warmed up with "L'Étoile Noire" that I didn't film this time, but was able to also finish the slightly harder direct exit in the left face also and capture that one on video.
A variation that adds a good 'plus' too the original easier exit on the right face.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - L'Étoile Noire (direct) 7A+

To show the difference with the right exit, I posted my video from March 2016.
Notice the background with still much more trees back then.
Since last year, they have started to thin out the forest in that part of the forest to bring it back to the state as seen by the famous artists from Barbizon many years ago.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - L'Étoile Noire 7A (March 2016)

As the underside of the boulder was still wet, I couldn't try the much harder sitstart of "L'Étoile Noire", but managed to pull off "Ventricule Droit" on the other side of the boulder. Elegance was far gone.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - Ventricule Droit 7A+

I spent quite some time in "Débardage" afterwards, but after a while, I had to wait longer and longer in between tries to let the holds dry out, so I decided to move to the 91.1 area close to home. Tony (Fouchereau) has been quite busy there, so there's again some new things to try.
One of them is "Hyperloop" in the back end of the area. A small, but nice little prow that I managed to flash with a bit of luck.

Fontainebleau - 91.1 - Hyperloop 7A(6C+)

Next I wanted to try "La Surfusion", but I started to get tired and the conditions weren't working with me neither.
I had bumped into Markus (Neher) a few minutes earlier and he had told me about the sitstart of number 35 of the red circuit was opened by Tony (Fouchereau) as a 7A.
I turned to that one instead, but had to fight much harder than I had expected. It looks much easier than it turned out to be, or maybe I was getting really tired, but still ... It felt like a good 7A+ to me, at that moment.

Fontainebleau - 91.1 - Plein Ouest (assis) 7A(7A+)

December 27, 2018 - Making contact.

The first time I saw "Contact" in the back end of the J.A. Martin area, was while wandering around looking for other easier isolated boulders. It looked like a beauty, but also way too hard.
That was already many years ago, and by now, I had already spent a fair amount of sessions on it. The first three or four sessions, I couldn't do the first move, but somehow I knew that this huge dynamic move from the undercling to a bad sloper was possible, and kept coming back for it. The fact that it is nicely isolated from the main area definitely plays a part in it, but also the line itself kept calling me.
The last session, a couple of months ago, I had finally been able to stick that first hard move, but with the low boulder in my back and only one crashpad with me, I chickened out, I didn't dare to go all the way and start the mantle.
Now that I had also received a smaller Drop Zone crashpad from Black Diamond a few weeks ago, I had a second one to also cover the ground, so it only came down to waiting for the good conditions to go back for it.
Today seemed like a good day.

It was again freezing cold with a dense fog this morning, but it was forecasted to clear up and the sun should come out around noon.
I was patient and waited for it to clear up, but by noon there was still no sign of the sun anywhere in sight. Even the fog hadn't dissipated completely yet, but I left anyway.
The conditions of the boulder were good, but I had hoped for better though. I was afraid that the slopers would become humid too soon again after being touched by warm hands.
The first move didn't work out immediately, but after gradually fine-tuning it, it stuck again but as I was spooked by it, I failed on next.
The second time it stuck, the sloper already felt less good and I had to let go.
I took a short break to let it dry out a bit more and regain its friction, and finished it the attempt after.

It felt great to top it out! A true beauty that perfectly fits my style and still felt hard.
It was a long battle, but the victory was sweet.

Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Contact 7B+(7B)

December 25, 2018 - It's Christmas.

The sky cleared up last night, the wind had turned to come from the North-East and the temperature had dropped well below freezing. On top of that, the sun was shining already in the morning.
Normally the ideal conditions, but the air was warming up too fast and the was still too humid.
Just like a couple of days ago, I decided to head to the quite sunny Drei Zinnen.
Last time, I spent a fair amount of tries in the hard "Sustine ou Abstine". At least, for me it felt hard for some reason.
I could quite easily do all the separate moves, but somehow always fell out of one of them when coming from the start.
If someone would have told that this was 7B, I probably would have confirmed that by mentioning that it's a hard one too.

Maybe it was because of the conditions that felt good at first, but just like last time got bad quickly after each try, but also today, I still had to fight hard to finally make my way to the top.
Very nice problem in my opinion. I kind of enjoyed fighting with it.

Fontainebleau - Drei Zinnen - Sustine ou Abstine 7A+

It's Christmas.

December 22, 2018 - False hope.

When I looked outside this morning, and watched the status of my front terrace, my hopes were for high for good climbing.
My front terrace is paved with Bleau sandstone, so mostly the condition my terrace is in, gives a good indication for the conditions of the boulders in the forest.
With the wind coming from the South-West, I knew that Drei Zinnen would catch a lot of it, so decided to try my chances there.
Despite my front terrace being nearly dry, the streets were still very wet, and when I arrived at Drei Zinnen, I feared for the worst.

Some boulders had started dry, but the conditions were far from good and some overhangs were even sparkled with condensation drops.
I quickly gave up hope on trying some harder projects, but set my priority to finding a dry line on the first place.
Against all odds, "Jubile", facing North was dry enough for an attempt.
As it's not a very attractive line, I had always left it aside, but now topped it on my second attempt. It was good a to warm up.

Fontainebleau - Drei Zinnen - Jubile 7A(6C+)

The boulders did dry a bit more when time passed, but there was so much humidity in the air that long breaks were needed to let the holds dry again after every couple attempts.

All in all, I did climb more than I had expected, but only came home with "Jubile". It was better than nothing.

December 15, 2018 - Gyropode.

Again freezing temperatures this morning, but the conditions were not as good as yesterday. The humidity in the air was much higher and made it feel even colder.

Tony (Fouchereau) keeps on finding new games in all the areas of which everything was already opened. "Gyropode" in Roche aux Sabots is one of them, hidden in plain sight.
A surprisingly fun problem that took me longer than expected to find a good method. Not that straightforward than it would seem.

Fontainebleau - Roche aux Sabots - Gyropode 7B(7A+)

It started raining in the afternoon and with the temperature announced to go up to almost 10°C tomorrow, it might condense a lot and keep everything wet.