August 07, 2016 - Twix and shout.

I was in Belgium for a day and left this morning at 8 am. I wanted to be back home early enough to be able to still climb with Pieter.
We agreed to meet in Franchard Cuisinière and during the almost 4h drive I was thinking about some problems to try there. It was hot, so I didn't set my hopes too high for some hard climbing.

When I arrived in Melun, I had to stop for gas and bought a Twix with a small of bottle of Coke as I hadn't eaten anything yet today and I felt that I needed some sugar to get at least some energy.
The boring drive had made me tired so the boost of sugar would do me good.

In the meantime Pieter sent me a message that he was in Cuisinière Crête Sud, somewhere near "La Mouche".
I had tried "La Mouche" once a couple of years ago, but was never able to make the crux move to the sharp crimp far right. It was still on my to-do list though, so meeting at "La Mouche" was fine for me.
We met at the boulder, which was lying for the most part in the shade and we both wanted to give it some tries.
I didn't expect much as I was still feeling tired and hadn't warmed up yet. Still, after a few sips of the almost warm bottle of Coke, I put on my shoes and tried the first moves. It wasn't bad, but not good either.
Pieter kind of convinced me in working out all the moves separately and to my surprise, all the moves except for the crux went fine.
I told Pieter that if I would be able to make the crux move, that I would set up the camera. I was starting to believe in it.
A couple of tries later, I was able to stick the crux in a controlled way.

I set up the camera and went for my attempt.
The moves all went like a charm and when I also stuck the crux move again, I was tried not to be too surprised and kept my focus on doing the last 2 moves.
I almost couldn't believe it, but I did it! I cruised through the problem as if it was a 6B or less.

Fontainebleau - Cuisinière Crête Sud - La Mouche 7B+

We continued to climb in Cuisinière Crête Sud and on the way back to our cars we stopped at the isolated boulder with "Wu-Tang".
We had a look and luckily it was completely dry.

No working out moves this time, but just looking at the holds, and Ivan's video, and we were set to go.
The first move, getting your butt off the ground and reaching for the better hold in the crack is the hardest.
Pieter nearly had it on his first try, but his heelhook didn't last long enough for the topout and hurt his hand in the process so he stopped his attempts.
I did it on my second try. Slightly soft for the grade I would say.

Fontainebleau - Cuisinière Crête Sud - Wu-Tang 7A+

Now that we were there and that the boulder was dry, I wanted to also try the left variation, "Wu-Tang (gauche)".
We had a small discussion about the description and where to go exactly, and decided that if the version I did was the wrong one, that I would ask Jean-Pierre to create a new page on bleau.info and call it "Wu-Tang (direct)".
It turned out that the left variation makes a dyno from the big crimp to a hold far left instead of up, so here is the direct version that we conveniently call "Wu-Tang (direct)". I already emailed Jean-Pierre.

Fontainebleau - Cuisinière Crête Sud - Wu-Tang (direct) 7A

I felt tired all along the drive and was in need for sugar, but all in all I climbed good and was able to tick off some nice problems. That was the best Twix ever!!