August 27, 2016 - Trying to keep it cool.

This morning I left early to be sure that I could do some climbing before the arrival of the heat.
They predicted already 31°C at noon, so it had to be before that.
It was about 8h am when I had parked the car and started walking towards Gorges du Houx Petit Paradis. The sun was still low and shining beautifully through the trees, I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Sunrise in Gorges du Houx.

I walked straight towards "La Diagonale du Fou".
Last time I was there, a couple of months ago, the small hold in the crack was humid and it was simply impossible to pull hard enough on it to make the jump.
Now, after so many dry and hot days, it was perfectly dry.

It's a beautiful steep overhanging boulder with a perfect crack going through it.
The first 3 moves are a walk in the park, but the small hold in the crack for the right hand is really small and you need all what you can get to be able to pull and jump.
The jump is scary though, because the landing underneath is quite exposed and sketchy.
To give you an idea, it was opened before the use of crashpads was more or less generalised and back then, it was opened with a toprope.

Even with crack being completely dry, it did take me quite some goes. The dyno is one of the kind that needs to be built up.
Firstly to build up confidence and secondly to find the exact good position to jump from and totally go for it.
It's a great problem, very nice!! Glad to be able to tick this classic off.

Fontainebleau - Gorges du Houx Petit Paradis - La Diagonale du Fou 7A+

While I was there, I looked at "Black or White" in a small cave nearby, but it's not something I felt comfortable enough for to try alone.
So, before leaving, I played around a bit and added a left sitstart to "L'Hypoténuse du Fou" which I conveniently called "L'Hypoténuse du Fou (assis gauche)" and the grade will be something like a soft 7A+(7A).
I'm most probably not the first who did this, but it's not yet registered on bleau.info. I'll ask Jean-Pierre if it's worth it to create an extra page for it or not.
Anyway, it was a fun thing to do.

Fontainebleau - Gorges du Houx Petit Paradis - L'Hypoténuse du Fou (assis gauche) 7A+(7A)

By then it was still only 9h15, and even though the sun was still quite low and behind the trees, there where she peeked through, it was starting to feel hot already.
I packed up, walked back and crossed the Route Ronde at Gorges de Franchard to continue my way to Franchard Ermitage.
There have been some new openings the last days and I wanted to check some of them out.
Most of them are located close the big parking of Gorges de Franchard, so the walk is not as long as going to the main area of Franchard Ermitage.

I tried "Souplesse Arrière", but it seems I don't have enough souplesse.
"Meridien" was completely in the sun, so I didn't even bother.
I had a look at "Titanium", but this is very exposed and I didn't even dare trying it.
Then I tried "Basique", but it's not really clear if both aretes may be used or not. If yes, then it's very morpho and if no, then I have no clue how to do it.

In the end walked further onto the blue path towards "Médiateur".
Funny because last time when I did the long walk in Franchard with Pieter and Kumiko, we passed this boulder, had a look at it, both agreed that it was nice, but probably too far to come back to.
Well, it's not too far when you're parked on the parking of Gorges de Franchard. Maybe 500m or so.

"Médiateur" went down on my second attempt. Opened as 7A(6C), I think 6C+ will do.
I didn't try the left variation because it looked dirty and sandy and I didn't feel like cleaning it in this heat.

Fontainebleau - Franchard Ermitage - Médiateur 7A(6C)