November 17, 2016 - Take what you can get.

It's been six days since my last post.
This usually means that those were dominated by rain, and now is no exception.
The Autumn is doing what Autumn does and it's doing it good. Rain, rain, rain, but also a beautiful colourful forest!

Today was finally a dry day and we even got to see some sun.
I took advantage of it and stopped at Cuvier on the way home from work, a quick climb would do me good after some really stressed out days without being able to vent through climbing.

Apart from a handful of cars, the parking was deserted. It wasn't a very good sign.
Bruno (Lazzerini), who was just leaving, confirmed what I feared. Condensation had kept almost everything soaking wet.
I didn't have time to go somewhere else, so I walked around and look for something just dry enough to climb, to take what I could get.

At least, for once, the infamous "Bleau Job Square" was totally empty and the only dry enough problems were "Charcuterie", "L'Araignée" and "Cortomaltèse".
I did "Charcuterie" already in 2009, but never tried "L'Araignée" that start to the right of it and exits in "Charcuterie".
The whole boulder was wet on the top and the holds were humid, but I had to take what I could get, so I decided to try it.
The feet were slippery and the holds felt uncertain, but soon I made it to the top. It felt great to climb again!

Fontainebleau - Cuvier - L'Araignée 7A

There was still about 15 minutes of daylight left, and even though I have done "Cortomaltèse" so many times already, I moved over to it so I could finally have it on camera.
After all, it is an über-classic-must-have-done problem, so it draws a lot of climbers, making it difficult to position the camera.
As the place was deserted, I took my chance. I had to take what I could get.

I missed the better sloper on my first try, but had it on my second and topped out.

Fontainebleau - Cuvier - Cortomaltèse 6C+(6C)

By the time I arrived back at the car, it had started to get dark and on the parking there already were some "lonely men" scattered, looking at each other and probably waiting for who would make the first move.

They were also there to take what they could get. Or should I say "to take WHO they could get" ?

I started the car, hoping that the radio wasn't playing "It's raining men".