Seven days of no climbing, mainly due to the rain was taking it's toll on me, and on my family.
After so long without climbing, it's like I get 'cold turkey' and I need my dose. I become grumpy.
That, a tremendous workload at work, not having the possibility to use climbing to channel away the stress and disconnect from work, is a bad combination.
On the news on the radio, mostly they talk about red alert in the region, red alert for floods. A lot of rivers went over their banks due to the constant rain.
Until today. This morning, the rain turned into a light drizzle and around noon it had stopped completely and the roads started to dry slowly. The sky was still grey but at least it was getting better.
I stopped half an hour early at work, planned to stop at Bas Cuvier, hoping to find a boulder dry enough to climb on.
There was a light drizzle while I was driving, but luckily it didn't last long.
In Bas Cuvier, that I sometimes jokingly call "the ghetto among the climbing areas", the boulders under the trees were of course still soaking wet, but I had set myself a target, "Banlieu Nord (direct)".
Being in an open spot, I hoped that at least that would be dry and to my pleasant surprise, it was dry enough to climb. I only had to dry the starting holds a bit with my towel.
While I was trying, the legendary Philippe Le Denmat passed by and gave me a small hint.
Philippe Le Denmat is a famous Bleausard and responsible for opening countless superhard slabs and crimpsy walls, out of which "Duel" is probably the most known and Enigma, with 8B, the hardest.
That man can probably climb up a marble wall if he wanted to.
The tip he gave me was to find a small crimp (of course) on the right sloper. It helped.
Fontainebleau - Bas Cuvier - Banlieu Nord (direct) 7A
It felt good to climb again but I had to go home.
I still didn't have enough though and when after diner, it still hadn't rained again, I went to 95.2.
On the parking I bumped into Jean-Jacques Naëls (aka Pepito), the well known topo maker and we briefly had a chat about his topos and about the 'Black Bible'. He has a copy and he likes it a lot.
It was nice to talk to him but sad to hear that he's done making topos.
"Indestructible" is a lowball boulder in a mostly populated part of 95.2. Mostly except for today.
I took my chance, sat down and did it first go. It went surprisingly easy, despite the couple of 'end-of-the-day' sessions I had in it.
After checking a video of it, I noticed that it starts with the right hand lower than I had done, so I had to do it again, but correctly now.
It does add this extra power move to it, but a couple of tries later it was done.
Short problem, a few power compression moves and a slopey topout. Just the way I like it.
I still didn't have enough though and when after diner, it still hadn't rained again, I went to 95.2.
On the parking I bumped into Jean-Jacques Naëls (aka Pepito), the well known topo maker and we briefly had a chat about his topos and about the 'Black Bible'. He has a copy and he likes it a lot.
It was nice to talk to him but sad to hear that he's done making topos.
"Indestructible" is a lowball boulder in a mostly populated part of 95.2. Mostly except for today.
I took my chance, sat down and did it first go. It went surprisingly easy, despite the couple of 'end-of-the-day' sessions I had in it.
After checking a video of it, I noticed that it starts with the right hand lower than I had done, so I had to do it again, but correctly now.
It does add this extra power move to it, but a couple of tries later it was done.
Short problem, a few power compression moves and a slopey topout. Just the way I like it.
Fontainebleau - 95.2 - Indestructible 7A+(7A)
When I arrived at the car, the drops on it revealed that it had started raining again.
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