March 18, 2016 - Singing in the shower.

I had hoped that the skin on my fingers would have recovered more after 2 days of no climbing.
I guess it didn't.

My main goal for this afternoon was going to be "Game One", a 7B+ on pure Fontainebleau slopers in Apremont Butte aux Dames, but it was taken by a group of Dutch guys.
It looked like they were going to be stuck for quite a while, so I didn't bother waiting.
I did stay in the area though and went straight for "Les Baloches", a 7B a little further up the slope.

It didn't take long, maybe 10 minutes of trying when the first drops of blood started coming through the skin of my fingers, forcing me to tape 3 fingertips of my right hand.
I gave up after another couple of tries and thought about doing something easier and maybe more appealing for the skin. I wrote 'maybe'.

On the backside of the boulder of "L'Etoile Noire" you can find a 7A with a 7A+ variation that I wanted to try.
"Ventricule Gauche" is the 7A and "Ventricule Droite" is the 7A+ variation.
I was thinking that maybe there was a mistake, because the left version looked harder than the right one.
Anyway, I started trying the one with the left exit, "Ventricule Gauche".

Was it the warmth and therefore the conditions that are not as good anymore? Maybe it was the tape on my fingers and the lack of skin? Was I tired? Or was it just simply plain hard?
I'm sure that it would have been easier to stick the slopers without the tape, but still, this was hard!
It felt way harder than 7A to me, even closer to the 7B range.

It was a long time ago that I needed so much time to finish off a 7A. More than half an hour of non stop trying. I know, it will certainly not be the last neither that will take so much time!

When it was finally done, the blood was already showing through the tape too. No way that I could still try the other variation with the right exit.
I lost a lot of skin on this one. Not only my fingers, but also the skin on my arms and even my torso was showing the signs of scraped off skin.
It all doesn't hurt that much on that moment, but I can tell you that this evening, I was singing in the shower.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - Ventricule Gauche 7A