December 28, 2017 - Let's dance!

Finally today it was a beautiful sunny day, one that we all had been hungering for!
It had cleared up during the night already and there had been a lot of wind, so already in the morning everything outside looked dry.
I had to work from home until noon though, when my colleague and good friend Harco (De Man) took over. Thanks to him again for that!
However, he should thank me too, because I at the same time made it happen first that he didn't have to work all day today, so in the end, I owe him nothing now.
Anyway, it left me with the whole afternoon to profit from this lovely day.

I didn't want to drive far, so I parked at the nearby Croix Saint Jerôme with the intention to try "L'Enfer des Zombies" in Gros Sablons and maybe try something in 95.2 on the way back.
There was a lot of humidity in the air, however, and even though most boulders were dry, they weren't sticky. There was no "collante" as the French say, on the contrary.
I was able to work out all the moves but one of "L'Enfer des Zombies" though, but really need much better conditions to be able to give it some real goes.

On my way back to 95.2, I met Jean-Pierre (Roudneff) who was trying "Y But Profane" lower down the hill.
We had a brief chat and he told me that he saw "Coince et Danse" completely dry and seemingly good condition. Not having done that one before, I decided to go there. I wanted to climb, wished Jean-Pierre a Happy Easter and continued my way.

"Coince et Danse" was indeed completely dry, but the crescent shaped bad sloper didn't stick at all.
Many times, my right hand slipped off it at the crucial moment before I was able to finish it.
Maybe it were the conditions, but this felt like a tough one for the grade. Maybe one of the reasons I had never done it before?

Fontainebleau - 95.2 - Coince et Danse 7A

A bit higher up the hill, the boulder with "Danse avec les Loups" was completely free of climbers, despite the considerable crowd that had gathered in the quick drying area.
I took the chance to try and repeat it for the video.
The first time I did "Danse avec les Loups" was in October 2010 and despite having repeated it a couple times after, I had never been able to capture it on video.

Many can't even get both feet from the ground, but those who like to use bad tiny crimps will make their way through it.
The dyno from that strange position is the hardest, very off balance dynamic move!
Short problem, but very nice!

Fontainebleau - 95.2 - Danse avec les Loups 7A+(7B)

It's a pure coincidence that both problems have something to do with dancing.

I don't even like to dance, because I feel stupid when I do. I most likely look like it too!

December 26, 2017 - Spot the deer.

For nine days in a row, everything was constantly wet!
There wasn't much rain, but constantly you could feel and see the humidity falling down, keeping everything wet all the time.
Besides making long walks, trying the first 2 or 3 moves of an overhanging boulder here and there, celebrating Christmas and so on, not much has happened.

The most exciting thing that happened was yesterday, when I walked all the way to Apremont Fond des Gorges, just to look at wet boulders and secretly hoping for a miracle. It wouldn't have been the first on a 25th of December.
When I was walking towards "Saigon", I spotted a group of about 3 or 4 big deers at barely 30 meters from me.
Usually they run off immediately and by the time you can take a picture, they are gone, but not this time.
They were spooked, but remained still and watched me, as if they were waiting to see what my next move would be. I slowly took my phone out of my pocket, lifted it up to take a picture, which scared them, but I was able to take a picture of the last one of them.

Spot the deer.

Finally today, the sun was able to peek through from time to time and there was some wind, but the humidity in the air was still almost 100%, making it dry slowly.

I found a dry moment to spend in Canche aux Merciers, where most was still too humid, but "Poisson Pané" was doable and I was simply eager to climb after 9 days of non-activity.

Humidity, some time pressure, bad skin, blah, blah and blah. "Poisson Pané" felt hard for the grade!

Fontainebleau - Canche aux Merciers - Poisson Pané 7A

Hoping for better weather, but besides Thursday, it doesn't look any good ...

December 17, 2017 - Have a laugh.

It was cold and humid today. The sun came out once in a while, but never long enough to make any difference, resulting in boulders that barely dried and remained humid.
Even on the top of the hill of Cuisinière, everything was still too wet.
On my way back down the hill, I bumped into two French climbers, Greg and Romain, who were also looking for something dry, but in vain.
They told me, however, that "Excalibur" looked doable when they passed by it earlier and they were going back to try it after a short warmup.
I wanted to have another look around first, but even though tried, I had never done "Excalibur", so I agreed to join them later.

It didn't take long though, before I arrived at "Excalibur", nothing was dry. Even the top of "Excalibur" looked wet.
Greg and Romain were still warming up when I started trying already.
The holds on the arete were dry, but the bad pinch started to become dark and feel humid after a few tries.
It took a few minutes between tries before it was good enough to pull hard on it again, but many times we would slip off without warning.

We lost a lot of skin slipping off that bad pinch so many times, but it was a fun session with a good laugh and at least I was able to finish it with the top being wet.
To me, "Excalibur" has always felt hard, even in better conditions.
Definitely worth 7A+ if you ask me!

Fontainebleau - Cuisinière Crête Sud - Excalibur 7A(7A+)

December 16, 2017 - Better than nothing.

It had been a very busy work week with no room for climbing. When I wasn't working, it was either wet or dark already.
For today, the weather was announced to be quite good, but this morning everything was soaking wet.
The sky was mostly clear though and I gave it some time to dry while doing household.

It was already past noon when I arrived in 95.2, only to find nearly all the boulders still wet.
I hadn't set my hopes high, but I must say that I was slightly surprised and disappointed.
The top of "Miss KGB" was wet, but the holds in the slightly overhanging wall were dry enough and I started trying the first moves.
It didn't last long though, because barely ten minutes later it started raining. Not very hard, but long enough to make the key holds of "Miss KGB" unusable for the rest of the day.

A few more showers followed and I almost decided to go back home until I noticed a blue spot between the clouds in the distance. It was in the direction from where the wind came, and slowly it was coming my way.
I waited for a while, saw that the holds of "Futurs Barbares (direct)", that I wanted to try, had become wet, so I moved to probably the only boulder of the area that could be dry already, the boulder of "Tentation".
It's facing South on the South face of the hill and not overshadowed by trees, so it dries very quick.

It was indeed already dry, apart from the two last holds on the top, but these are quite good.
The conditions on "Tentation (assis)" were surprisingly good and the send didn't take very long.

Fontainebleau - 95.2 - Tentation (assis) 7B

More people had arrived in the meantime, coming from different directions, and it turned out that the only two dry boulders in the area at the moment, were "Tentation" and the nearby classic "Retour aux Sources".
I had already done "Retour aux Sources" back in 2010, but not having it on video yet and as there was seemingly nothing else, I started working in it with some other climbers. It was better than nothing.

The conditions could have been better and I could feel that I lost quite some energy in "Tentation (assis)" after all, but it turned out to be quite a fun session with some sends, including mine.

Fontainebleau - 95.2 - Retour aux Sources 7A

Hoping for better weather and conditions tomorrow!

December 08, 2017 - The next step.

Cuvier is, relative to driving distance from the office and walking distance from the car, the most beneficial area after work on a Friday when the office closes at 16h.
The drive is just under half an hour, leaving me with about half an hour of enough daylight left to climb comfortably this time of the year.
Well, comfortably is a bit of an overstatement considering time pressure to get something done, but it's better than nothing. Even ten minutes of climbing can be satisfying.

Last week when I did "La Bérézina", it had crossed my mind to also try "Bérézina-Carnage", but the boulder's best conditions were over and more people started to arrive, so in the end I didn't.
I did have the feeling however, that now I had done "Le Carnage", "Carnazina" and "La Bérézina", that "Bérézina-Carnage" would be a logical next step.
I knew all the moves, had done them all before in previous lines, so there wouldn't be too much time loss working it out. If only the conditions would be in favour.

My skin needed a few tries to get warmed up, but with each attempt, the friction seemed to become better.
After not climbing for a few days, the skin on my fingers becomes so thick that I can't feel any sensation of the friction, even when the conditions are good. It can be quite annoying sometimes.
Anyway, now it luckily didn't take that long to find the friction and to my big surprise I already topped "Bérézina-Carnage" after not even 20 minutes.
A beautiful line!

Fontainebleau - Cuvier - Bérézina-Carnage 7C+

Oh yeah, I've got a new stick.

December 02, 2017 - There goes the stick.

After going to the S'cape outdoor shop in Fontainebleau this morning, I met Bram (Honorez), Pieter and Thierry (Hardy) at the hippodrome bivouac.
Everything was wet there and I proposed to go South to Buthiers, hoping for dryer conditions there.
Bram and his girlfriend Ruuth had some shopping to do and hadn't decided yet where to go after.
Thierry, who just woke up five minutes ago, agreed to join Pieter and I in Buthiers after his breakfast.

The boulders did look better in Buthiers, but to determine a plan, we first scouted around looking for the boulders in best condition.
By the time we had gone around, Thierry had arrived too and after a short warmup, we started off in "Contrôle A" in which we got necked by the last really far move.
The conditions were getting worse after each try, to the point where the holds started to look dark from the moisture and we had to move.

We moved to the nearby "Insistance" which I did last Monday already and repeated on my second attempt today.
Pieter had to go deep, but followed soon.
Thierry seemed to have trouble with his skin today, because he kept on slipping off those bad slopers.
I only had time left for one more problem, and proposed to try "Résilience" in Buthiers Tennis.
It was also unfinished business for Thierry, so he was up to it and following our description of the problem, Pieter was motivated for it too.

I had already spent three sessions in "Résilience", but always got stuck at the last move.
I can see the top slopey edge, it looks so nearby, and yet every time so unreachable.
It relieved me a bit to hear that Thierry had the same problem on that problem.
Actually, each time before I started my session on it, I stood before it having the impression that this doesn't look hard at all. But, oh boy, how I got punished with a lesson in humbleness.
Now was no different. Until I slightly changed my beta on Thierry's advice.

The new beta allowed me to be in a more comfortable position for the last move which still turned out to be the crux move.
Still when you think you have the edge it's possible to swing off when making the wrong move, which resulted in me crashing on my telescopic brush stick, breaking it in the process.
But I managed to finish it a short while later after all.
Pieter fell off the last move and Thierry still had too much trouble with skin and kept on slipping off.
For me, "Résilience" is one of the hardest 7A+'s that I have ever done, and might as well be a good 7B in my opinion.
Still, a very nice one!

Fontainebleau - Buthiers Tennis - Résilience 7A+(7B)

December 01, 2017 - Seek shelter.

Just like in most places of the region, everything was covered under a thin layer of snow. Wet snow, because the temperature was just above 0°C and what was once snow had already started to melt.
I had planned to do some shopping in the Lidl supermarket of Saint-Pierre-Lès-Nemours and decided to stop in Larchant on my way.
Before taking the crashpad with me, I had a look around but found everything soaking wet of course.
Only the overhanging part of "La Barre Fixe" was dry, but its top holds were wet.
I doubted for a few seconds, but knowing that the last holds are quite good ones, I made up my mind and went back to the car to get the crashpad. At least I would be able to play around a little bit.

By the time I arrived at "La Barre Fixe" again, there was a mild drizzle mixed with half molten snow particles that were blown off the trees by the wind. But under that steep overhang it stayed dry, even though I could feel the cold humidity on my face.
I had to think of a video from Bram (Honorez) who did "La Barre Fixe (droite)" in mid-Summer, using a big tarp over the boulder as a shelter for the sun. I could have used it too this morning, but not for the sun.

I didn't let it bother me too much as I had already done "La Barre Fixe" on a crazy moment in 2008 when I had only started climbing in the seventh grade.
It took me about twenty minutes to find out the moving sequence that suited me most, but after that it didn't took long to reach the good jug. Static this time, I remember that in 2008 I did it more with a dyno.
I wasn't bothered by the wet holds on the top, but more worried about safely getting back down from the boulder in this wet and cold state.
Anyway, I climbed on and it turned out fine.

Fontainebleau - Éléphant - La Barre Fixe 7B+