January 14, 2017 - Finally!

I had barely climbed the last two weeks.
The first week of January, Maarten (Robays) stayed over, but the days were misty, grey and the conditions were always humid.
I was able to try some moves on several projects, but it was never more than just trying the moves on the only holds that were dry.
Topping out was never possible due to everything being wet.
Despite that, we spent each day, the whole day, in the forest, walking around, exploring and looking for dry boulders and being treated by nice Winter views sometimes.

This week had some dry moments with probably good conditions, but by the time I finished working it had rained again.

Until today, when I woke up with a blue sky and the rain was only announced to start just after noon.

I left early to profit as much as possible.

Apremont, catching the sun from the start of the day, seemed like a good idea and so it turned out to be.
Most boulders were still wet, but those who caught the sun early were drying fast.
"Particule Fine" already caught some sun and was dry, apart from the top but that I didn't see yet.
It was a perfect warmup.

Fontainebleau - Apremont - Particule Fine 6C(7A)

I tried "La Conque" on the left arete quite a few times, but I just couldn't find my balance to match both hands on the bad sloper.

I didn't plan anything before I left, so I had to improvise and made the very risky choice to walk over to Apremont Envers on the other side of the hill, the shady side.
Most was wet, but to my surprise, "Paul's Boutique" was not and I unpacked.
It seems that there are multiple versions, both given 7A+. Neither of them gave me any trouble and both went down really fast.

I started off with "Paul's Boutique (version originale)", a dyno.
Even though the position out of which you have to dyno feels really strange, I did it on my third attempt.
Felt soft for the grade.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Envers - Paul's Boutique (version originale) 7A+

After that came "Paul's Boutique" where it turned out that getting my second foot off the ground was the hardest.
I stopped my first attempt because the camera wasn't recording, but finished it right after.
Also easy for the grade if you ask me.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Envers - Paul's Boutique 7A+

After strolling around a bit, not finding any dry boulder of interest anymore, I decided to quickly go to Rocher Saint-Germain. It was becoming more and more clouded by now and it could start raining soon.
The drive is not far and I walked fast, thinking about what I could try depending on how dry it would be.
There were several options and "Mégalight (assis)" was the first one that I crossed. It was dry.

I had done the standing start a while ago and started trying the sitstart that same day.
It doesn't add much to the difficulty but I was too tired and knew that it would go down soon when I would be more fresh.

A week without climbing. How more fresh can you be?
The difficult dyno and the wet topout couldn't stop me and I topped out very unethically.

Fontainebleau - Rocher Saint-Germain - Mégalight (assis) 7B+

It was right on time, because five minutes later the rain came back. 

What started with some tiny drops had become a small mix of snow and rain storm by the time I arrived at the car.

I was wet and it was cold, but I didn't care. I had climbed again. Finally!!