January 28, 2019 - Break a leg.

After yet another weekend ruled by condensation and soaking boulders from top to bottom, this morning looked and smelled like good conditions, but of course, I had to go to work.
I had taken a few hours off, however, to be able to go and get my youngest son Noah, who is having his sixth birthday, from school. It gave me the occasion to stop for some climbing on my way home.
To increase my chances for dry boulders, I decided to start off at the 91.1 area, where I wanted to try "La Serpe d'Or".
While walking, I passed through the Roche aux Sabots area, and immediately noticed that most of the boulders were dry even there. It gave me an idea for something on the way back.

"La Serpe d'Or" is basically the same as "Le Gardien de But", but instead of starting with the hard pinch left hand, you are allowed to use the good crimp slightly left and above.
It makes the first move to the crimp right hand much easier, but no matter what I tried, that position was too stretched out for me to move enough and make the hard jump. So I decided to try it using the dyno method.
The dyno on itself is not very hard, but holding the swing is. I definitely had my fun.

Fontainebleau - 91.1 - La Serpe d'Or 7B

My idea for the way back was "Gasthaus Unterslag" in Roche aux Sabots Sud.
A few years ago, I had come close to sending it, but the ever eroding ground had made the landing even more steep and dangerous over time.
It was so bad that I had given up the idea of ever trying it again without a few crashpads and a good spotter.
Yesterday however, when I was doing a walk, I passed by it and noticed that some people had improvised quite a good base with long branches and small trees.
I was glad that what was soaking wet yesterday, was now dry and in quite good conditions. It is amazing how fast it can dry sometimes.

I started easy with my sessions and tried to hold off on really going for it until I felt that I had found my perfect position to jump from.
It's only about half a metre of jumping, but the movement you have to make is quite hard and you have to do it extremely fast. On top of that, when you go for it and miss the good edge, you fly way back and there's almost three metres of emptiness under the crashpad. Bad enough to break a leg.
One of the scariest dyno's I had to do, especially without spotter. 

Fontainebleau - Roche aux Sabots Sud - Gasthaus Unterslag 7C(7B+)

January 18, 2019 - Check.

The days are slowly but steadily getting longer again, which leaves me with almost an hour daylight left on Friday after work.
I used the occasion to stop at Gorge aux Châts on my way home. I didn't have anything particular in mind, but the area being so close to the parking would save a lot of walking time.

The conditions weren't very good because of the rain from last night, and the lack of time didn't really motivate me to go for something real hard. I did sit down in the new and very hard "No Comply", opened recently by Olivier Lebreton, and worked for a bit in "La Grande Caravane", until my eye fell on "Opéra Tchétchène".

I had already done the easier "Opéra Tchétchène (raccourci)" a long time ago, but despite the few times that I tried "Opéra Tchétchène", I had never made it through to the end on the left. I must admit that the fear of falling on the boulder below me did play a role in that.
Today was no different. I didn't feel at ease while hanging above that boulder, but I tried to keep calm, swung my foot up and luckily found a quite good, but wet hold far up and pulled myself on it.
Glad to check this pretty nice line off and that I only needed one attempt for it today.

Fontainebleau - Gorge aux Châts - Opéra Tchétchène 7A+

January 13, 2018 - Condensation!

I had high hopes that the Winter wouldn't be one like we had last year, but unfortunately it's already well on its way.
Just like last weekend, and the one before, the conditions were dominated by heavy condensation due to the rising temperature. Today we even made it to 12°C!
There had been quite some wind last night though, which continued on this morning, but leaving early to 91.1 before possible rain was in vain.
Despite the wind, the boulders were still soaking wet from top to bottom, just like yesterday, and I had no choice but to do a walk again or go back home and try again later.
I chose the latter.

A few hours later, I decided to give it a try in J.A. Martin. There I was able to find one dry boulder of interest, the small one with "Le Toit du Ninja Blanc", which was catching all the wind on that small hill.
There was only one (easier) line on it that I hadn't done before, so I decided to go back to the parking and get my gear. Being almost certain that I wouldn't find any boulder in climbable condition, I had left everything in the car.
"Le Ninja Blanc Bec" isn't something I normally would  go back to the car for, but at least I would be doing something else than walking and watching one wet boulder after the other.
It was quickly done.

Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Le Ninja Blanc Bec 6C+(6C)

To keep the fun going and stay busy, I stayed for a while longer and repeated "Le Toit du Ninja Blanc" too, again.

Fontainebleau - J.A. Martin - Le Toit du Ninja Blanc 7A (repeat)

On the way home, I walked over to 91.1 again, but again in vain. Everything was still soaking wet!

January 04, 2019 - Just working out.

I doubted for a while before I decided to publish the below video and even name and grade it.
It was after work late this afternoon and I only had a big half an hour of enough daylight left to work out the moves of "L'Étoile Noire (assis)".
The big key hold under the roof still made made my fingertips humid, but I did manage to work out those moves enough to have an idea on how to move and even did most of them separately.
There are two hard crux moves under the roof before coming into the position where I am at the start of the video.
What follows is another hard crux move, which took me quite some before I was able to make that one. A very precise far dynamic move, much further than I had expected to be honest.
Anyway, when I was working out that dynamic precision move to the pinch, I decided to climb on and topped out when I finally stuck it.

I definitely didn't open a new variation or anything close to it, but I thought that this extra hard move to come into the original standing start felt so sweet that I decided to keep the video. For myself, but also to share with anyone who feels like watching it.
If "L'Étoile Noire" would have been opened with that start, then I think the grade would probably be about 7B.
I will not send this to any website to publish it or make it supposedly official, but if any picks this up and decides that it's worth it, then why not. It's all about having fun and working out anyway. Or at least a lot.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - L'Étoile Noire (accroupi) 7B

Have fun!

January 02, 2019 - Five days too late.

Out of the week and half of holiday I had taken, the past five consecutive ones were wet or soaking wet.
Some friends from Belgium were spending their holidays in area and I had to hear the phrase "We can always do a walk instead." way too many times. But basically, that's all that was possible in the forest those past five days.
Well, there are indeed much more things possible to do in the forest, but it definitely wasn't climbing.

Finally yesterday late in the evening when it was dark, I was able to make out some stars in the sky here and there. Like little sparkles of hope.
It meant that the sky was finally clearing up, because those past five days, it was nothing but grey, dull and dark.
Looking at the weather forecast, the next five days should be quite clear with scattered clouds and no more rain. Five days that came five days too late.
Actually, its four days too late, because as my last day of holiday was today, I was able to profit from the first signs of a drying forest.

When I went for a walk around Apremont yesterday, the boulders were heavily covered with condensation, from top to bottom and under the roofs and overhangs. It was soaking wet.
It was a big and very pleasant surprise to discover that most of the boulders of Apremont Butte aux Dames were in climbable condition.
There where it was very dry, it even stuck. But not for long though.
The conditions were good but didn't last long after being touched. Kind of what I expected, but hey, at least I was able to do something.

I warmed up with "L'Étoile Noire" that I didn't film this time, but was able to also finish the slightly harder direct exit in the left face also and capture that one on video.
A variation that adds a good 'plus' too the original easier exit on the right face.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - L'Étoile Noire (direct) 7A+

To show the difference with the right exit, I posted my video from March 2016.
Notice the background with still much more trees back then.
Since last year, they have started to thin out the forest in that part of the forest to bring it back to the state as seen by the famous artists from Barbizon many years ago.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - L'Étoile Noire 7A (March 2016)

As the underside of the boulder was still wet, I couldn't try the much harder sitstart of "L'Étoile Noire", but managed to pull off "Ventricule Droit" on the other side of the boulder. Elegance was far gone.

Fontainebleau - Apremont Butte aux Dames - Ventricule Droit 7A+

I spent quite some time in "Débardage" afterwards, but after a while, I had to wait longer and longer in between tries to let the holds dry out, so I decided to move to the 91.1 area close to home. Tony (Fouchereau) has been quite busy there, so there's again some new things to try.
One of them is "Hyperloop" in the back end of the area. A small, but nice little prow that I managed to flash with a bit of luck.

Fontainebleau - 91.1 - Hyperloop 7A(6C+)

Next I wanted to try "La Surfusion", but I started to get tired and the conditions weren't working with me neither.
I had bumped into Markus (Neher) a few minutes earlier and he had told me about the sitstart of number 35 of the red circuit was opened by Tony (Fouchereau) as a 7A.
I turned to that one instead, but had to fight much harder than I had expected. It looks much easier than it turned out to be, or maybe I was getting really tired, but still ... It felt like a good 7A+ to me, at that moment.

Fontainebleau - 91.1 - Plein Ouest (assis) 7A(7A+)