Of course, everything was soaking wet, but around 10h the skies cleared up and allowed the sun to shine.
Despite that, our terrace out front (which is made of the same sandstone as the boulders in the forest) seemed be staying wet forever, and as I know by experience, the condition of that terrace is mostly a good indication of how dry the boulders are in some places.
I took a lot of time doing household and finally around 14h in the afternoon, the signs were starting to look in favour.
It's very unusual for me to leave that late, but this time I was extremely patient.
Still, after that long waiting, most of the streets were still wet and when I arrived on the parking of J.A. Martin, I even doubted to go have a look at the boulders without crashpad first.
It still looked wet, but knowing that the sector with "L'Étrave" dries really quick, I took the crashpad anyway to avoid having to come back for it.
In the worst case, the walk would have been only a bit heavier.
The only reason I wanted to try "L'Étrave (assis)", was because that I knew it's in of the quickest drying sectors in the forest, which increased my chances for climbing.
I expected at least the big undercling to be still wet, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the boulder was completely dry and felt in very good condition!
I had done the standing start only a few weeks ago, so as I still had that sequence in my head, I immediately started working the moves from the sit to the stand. Which took me only a couple of minutes by the way. The friction was great!
Already after a handful attempts, I fell off the last move and I decided to take a five minute break.
On the first try after my short break, I executed all the moves perfectly and used the friction to take my time for every move.
The sitstart doesn't add very much difficulty to the standstart, but the move to the undercling is much more powerful and requires a lot of body tension.
All in all, a superbe five star problem according to me!
Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - L'Étrave (assis) 7C
On the way back to the car I kept on thinking that patience really did help this time. It was a virtue.
I also couldn't resist turning around and look back at the beautiful hill with the sector "L'Étrave".
Sector "L'Étrave" (J.A. Martin) on the top of the hill in the middle of the picture.
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