Vallée Chaude is a beautiful, undisturbed, little valley where princesses walk around with pink umbrellas, singing songs and cheering, tsjirping birds sit on their shoulders, rabbits hop around and play in the grass and deers eat out of your hands while being caressed on their heads. In the evenings the animals gather around a big campfire, chatting, playing the flute and guitar and singing "Kumbaya".
Of course this only happens in fairy tales, but you can believe me about the beautiful, undisturbed, little valley part. Until I came along ...
It is a small area with a couple of boulders spread around, but certainly worth the visit!
My main goal for today was "Unplugged", a 7B in a low roof.
I was hoping that it would be dry enough for the topout, and if not, that at least the water would be frozen so it would be easy to wipe off the ice.
It was all quite damp when I arrived, but to my surprise, all the holds that I needed were dry.
When trying out some moves however, my first feeling was that it was going to be too hard, at least one of the moves, the dynamic move to the crimp, seemed nearly impossible. It's hard to see on the video, but when hanging underneath the roof and looking at the crimp where you have to make the swing to, it is really far.
I took some time to work out the moves separately and after being able to do the dynamic move with the topout, I setup the camera and went for a complete try.
I made the swing, took the crimp, went for the exit and fell off due to bad foot placement. You really have to keep your act together from the start until the top. It's not over once you pass the crux.
I was really glad when I made it on my next attempt!
Fontainebleau - Vallée Chaude - Unplugged 7B
There are some more 7's on the same boulder and I could have stayed longer, but I wanted to have a reason to come back to this beautiful valley.
I tried it a couple of times in summer, but the bad slopers on it required some colder temperatures. So no excuses now.
The slopers were indeed much better to stick today and I was able to do the far move to the right a couple of times for the first time. I was able to do all the moves now and climb the problem in 2 parts but couldn't link it all together from the start. This one will go down soon I thought and continued to Cuvier.
I met Stef, Paul, Philip, Adriaan, Tom, Sarah, Joris, Wolff, and some others whose names escape me now and even though it was nice to see them all again, I wasn't prepared to see so many people at once, and slowly wandered off to the other side of the road to Apremont Envers. I wanted to give "The Eggman" a try.
I did it pretty fast and thought that it was really easy for 7A(7A+). It was only when I came back home that I saw that it actually starts with a sitstart at the crack left. That explains it all.
Anyway, I have the video of the standstart and will ask Jean-Pierre to create an extra page on bleau.info for the standstart, because, all in all it was fun to do the stand. "The Eggman (debout)" will probably be about 6C+.
Fontainebleau - Apremont Envers - The Eggman (debout) 6C+
By that time, I was slowly getting through my energy reserves, and after trying "Bali Balan" a couple of times, I decided to call it a day and left.
I started driving on the parking and in the last moment I parked again because I thought that maybe I could still do "Le Toit du Gollum" in Cuvier Ouest. It's something that I never finished before because I usually just try it quickly while having my mind on all the other problems to do out there.
At least now my mind was only fixed on "Le Toit du Gollum" so maybe I would finally send it today.
It helped, because I needed only one try this time. According to me, the grade of this problem really depends on the conditions and I think being taller would help too. I was glad to still be able to finish it.
It was a fairly good day. I will end it this evening sitting at the fireplace with the guitar in my hands, pretending I can play it and sing "Kumbaya".
Fontainebleau - Cuvier Ouest - Le Toit du Gollum 6C(7A)
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