May 29, 2021 - Using the flow.

I went back to the beautiful, but still sort of secret, boulder of "Kong" for the fifth time this morning and had already done a multiplication of that number attempts on it, but never got to the end when coming from the start. I knew though that it was just a matter of feeling fresh enough and not let myself being carried away by pressure, so I took a slightly different approach. I took my time and rested well between attempts.

I worked out the sequence again and sensed a flow, but I started feeling a slight pressure or so called 'sending stress' when I knew that I was getting close again. This time though, I didn't let that feeling take over and calmed myself down while resting between attempts.

After some time, I said to myself to give it another try or two before taking a longer rest. Funny enough, it was at that moment that I sat down for the start, literally told myself  to "go with the flow", which I did without feeling any pressure and surprised myself that I passed the crux, made the next move and couldn't resist shouting out my joy when I made to the top. It was a while ago that I felt so relieved after climbing a problem. Beautiful boulder!

First done by Maxime Baroud and proposed as 7C+, but apparently most of the few repeaters on 8a.nu grade it 8A. I'ld rather stick with 7C+, thanks to the flow.

Thanks again to Jean-Hervé Baudot for letting me (and probably others) use the many of his crashpads that were still stacked underneath the boulder. It was a funny coincidence to meet him there again and share some of my joy with him.

Next time, I'll start trying "King".

Fontainebleau - Boissy aux Cailles - Kong 7C+(8A)

The beautiful surroundings of Boissy aux Cailles, almost magical.

May 23, 2021 - Good old normal.

Sunday, fairly nice weather and still I decided to go to Franchard. I admit, I enjoyed the crowd for once. I climbed alone the whole time, as usual, but it was great to see other people, mostly hikers and families with kids enjoying the beauty of the forest. Many groups of friends and family were pick-nicking. Most didn't wear masks (something that I also refuse to do when being outside), and it was beautiful to see smiles on uncovered faces, greeting each other as they crossed paths. It's almost surreal to think that this totally normal behavior has become part of the expression 'good old times'. Yes, I am one of those that will never accept the 'new normal' as there is nothing normal to it.

I wanted to start with the recently opened "Snakes & Ladders", but there was no location description other than it being in Franchard Ermitage. A quite wide-spread area, and I had no clue where to start looking for it first, so I just followed a hunch that I had and miraculously found it pretty fast, well hidden in a chaos of boulders with no obvious path leading to it.
Flashed it, albeit not without some luck. Rather on the soft side for the proposed grade, but nevertheless, a nice problem, opened by Jason Kester.

Fontainebleau - Franchard Ermitage - Snakes & Ladders 7B

In another part of Franchard Ermitage, I went looking for the big roof of "Le Toit". 
Maybe I was getting tired, but this felt harder than 7A+ and might as well be 7B if you ask me. Beautiful problem though!

Fontainebleau - Franchard Ermitage - Le Toit 7A+

May 22, 2021 - One less excuse.

Sometimes it takes a while before I can make up my mind which area to go for a climb. This morning though, it didn't take very long to decide to go to Mont Blanc as I wanted to try "Stegodon", "Mégalodon" and maybe also "Mastodon". 
"Stegodon" and "Mastodon" are on the same boulder, and despite having taken two crashpads, I only went for "Stegodon", which I managed to do in barely ten minutes. For "Mastodon", I must admit that I would like to have someone spotting me, if only for the mental side of it.

Fontainebleau - Mont Blanc Est - Stegodon 7B

I did try "Mégalodon" again, did a few much better attempts than last time, but no top yet.

I have been using Chalk Rebels products for a couple of months now, and finally discovered the downside to them: I can't use bad skin as an excuse anymore for not finishing a project.

May 20, 2021 - False sense of freedom.

We have been given another false sense of freedom yesterday in the form of the curfew starting at 21h (9 pm) instead of 19h (7 pm). Does that make us more free ? Not at all, I would say. Even though less strict, restrictions are still there and the more I think of them, the more angry I become. The more I think of those who are imposing these restrictions, the more I want to spit in their faces. Nobody should be allowed to tell us where and when we may stand. The world is ours, it doesn't belong to a handful of politicians. Public property is ours, it's what our taxes are paying for and it belongs to the public.
I would like to write a lot more about how I feel in this situation that has been going on for over a year, but will keep it to myself as it might hurt some people's feelings, unwillingly. All I will say is that my opinion isn't always in line with the mainstream narrative. To be clear, that doesn't mean that I reject everything that is being said, it rather means that I don't automatically believe everything that is being propagated by mainstream media. It's not because they say it on TV or the radio that I automatically accept it as true. That doesn't make me a conspiracy theorist, but rather a healthy critical thinker who will not sleep less if I'm hated for it.
Enough of that rant now, even though I sometimes would like to go on for hours, I suck at expressing myself in a way that would be deemed correct to others.

I did enjoy my renewed false sense of freedom this evening by going out to the forest for a short climb, all alone, but still expected to be home by 21h, which I was by the way.
Despite the heavy rain during the past days, it did dry quickly and the friction on "Esthétique" in Rocher Cailleau almost couldn't have been better. Beautiful prow, beautiful problem!

Fontainebleau - Rocher Cailleau - Esthétique 7B+

May 16, 2021 - Hidden in plain sight.

The amount and sort of garden work that I have been doing during the past weeks is starting to take its toll and my body and energy levels, which affects my climbing. The past couple of days, the weather has been very unpredictable, so I used the occasion to not climb yesterday, but did go for a walk around Justice de Noisy. Laurent (Darlot) was there, tempting his chances during a dry window, but had to wait a while for the boulder that he wanted to start with, to dry, so I hung around for a couple of minutes to have a nice chat. While talking, he advised me about a nice prow that was opened by Tony (Fouchereau), at only about 50m from the "Vandale" boulder in Rocher Cailleau. He looked quite convincing when saying how beautiful it is, so I headed over there immediately after our short conversation.
Laurent hadn't been lying, far from it even. I found the big beautiful prow at only a stone throw away from the boulder with "Vandale" and "Alien". Amazing how this could beauty could have remained hidden in plain sight for so long.
I admired the boulder for a few minutes, imagined some possible lines and went back home to browse Tony's Instagram account (bleautony) for more information. It took quite some scrolling down his feed before I finally found the videos of his ascents on that boulder, posted already a year ago.

This morning, the weather looked grey and humid, and the forecast looked rainy all day long. It wasn't raining yet when I got out of bed, so I prepared and left for whatever time I could grasp to climb on the boulder that I admired so much yesterday.
The prow was dry, but the slopey crimps on the right face were humid, making the crux trying not to slip off. My attempts to speed up the drying process seemed to help, because in the end I did find just enough friction to work my way to the top of "Esthétique (direct)".
Still some more nice variations to do, but the compression climbing started to take its toll. Just in time, because when I was driving home, the first heavy rain shower of the day made everything soaking wet.

Fontainebleau - Rocher Cailleau - Esthétique (direct) 7B

May 14, 2021 - Little scarab.

You had to leave early and be a little bit lucky to be able to climb dry boulders today. I turned out to be both, or maybe it was simply a right decision to go back to Justice de Noisy.
"Petit Scarabée" has been published recently, and it was one of the boulders that I already found, but couldn't make much out of Tony Fouchereau's original description.
Only a two meter high boulder, and only the first two moves are hard. Hard enough though to be a good 7B.

Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - Petit Scarabée 7B+(7B)

"Le Poli Soir" hasn't been published yet and Tony's descriptions about all the different variants weren't very clear, but the boulder looks so nice that I couldn't resist to just climb the most logical line on it. It doesn't look hard and I believe that the original proposed grade was supposed to be 6C(7A), but this felt like a very hard 7A, and according to me even 7A+. 
Very beautiful line, a boulder that's begging to be climbed.

Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - Le Poli Soir 7A(7A+)

May 02, 2021 - You choose.

It was much later than I had anticipated when I was driving to Rocher de Corne-Biche, and the thought of all the garden work that I had planned for the afternoon couldn't let me go. Passing the small Bois du Rocher area, I noticed that there was nobody parked, so I changed my mind and decided to stop there to try "Bastata (droite)".
The conditions didn't look very promising, but the light breeze from the North-West seemed to have done a very good job on the North-facing "Bastata". It was dry and the cold sand stone surface felt almost perfect. I was pretty confident about topping out on those bad slopers in such conditions, if only I would stick that first very hard move.

As I expected, it took a while to get the coordination right for that first move, but I only had to stick it once. 
Not much harder than the easier left exit in these conditions.

Fontainebleau - Bois du Rocher - Bastata (droite) 7C(7C+)

No inspiration for a title, so ... You choose.

May 01, 2021 - Justice for all.

We had a fair bit of rain since yesterday evening and it took a long time before it looked dry enough to go out for a climb. Forced by the conditions, I had no choice but to turn around my usual schedule and it was only in the afternoon that I left the house.
It looked sort of dry, but not enough to risk going too far to try something hard. Despite occasionally seeing the sun, it rather looked like it could rain any minute again, so I stayed close to home and went for a stroll around in Justice de Noisy. Not everything was dry, but I was able to climb some new problems.

Quite easily flashed "Professeur Tournesol".

Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - Professeur Tournesol 7A(7A+)

Followed by a flash of "L'Âge Ta Raison (assis)". As this is not published yet, I am not entirely sure about the end and what is allowed for the feet. Apart from the first couple of moves, it did feel quite soft for the grade.

Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - L'Âge Ta Raison (assis) 7A

I finished with the supposedly easier on paper, "Accroupitude". This one, on the other hand, rather felt like a hard 7A, or maybe even 7A+.
Much nicer climb than it looks.

Fontainebleau - Justice de Noisy - Accroupitude 6C+(7A)

Soon after I did "Accroupitude", started raining a bit, so I decided to go home, but make a detour along the ridge of the hill to enjoy the beautiful views.

A picture doesn't do any justice to how beautiful these many views are.