There was a very light and mild drizzle this morning, not enough to make it actually wet, but it wasn't helping for better conditions neither, on the contrary. Nevertheless, the recently opened and published "Pulpo" in Mont Pivot was good enough to try, as opposed to two weeks ago when I wanted to go try it at first. I had noticed the boulder still uncleaned a few months ago when I was walking around the area, but even though the boulder looked tempting, I didn't feel like brushing it and kept in the back of my mind for some other time. It was a funny coincidence to see that Fred and Carina had apparently noticed the boulder as well a few weeks later, but they did do the effort of brushing it and opening several problems on it, of which "Pulpo" being the hardest. Fred proposed 7A for it. For me it rather felt like an established 7A+. A very nice short problem, but definitely not a give-away.
It was a long time ago that I went to Franchard, so I was surprised to see that the parking of Franchard Isatis was closed. I'm not sure if it was just for today or, in the worst case, permanent. It meant that I was up for a longer walk, but on the other hand, it just increased my chances of being alone in the forest, especially as I had planned to go to the less popular Franchard Basses Plaines. I had hoped for better conditions instead of damp boulders, but being out there in the forest with no-one around made it all good. I chose Basses Plaines, as I was hoping to do the isolated "Longbow". Last time I tried it, I found a possible method for the first part of the problem after watching a video of Jason Kester. As I am not as tall as he is, I only needed to fine tune one move. Despite the fact that my fingers were quickly getting dirty with green grainy moss, I was able to fine tune the moves and make a fairly quick ascent.
Up next was "Le Marquis (assis)", of which I did the standing start almost two years ago. The slopey arete was also damp though and the lower part felt almost impossible at first. Luckily, the friction got better with each attempt, but the higher untouched slopers were quite slippery and I kept sliding off the mantle. On one of attempts, I accidently grabbed one of the bigger further left, but decided to top out anyway. Apparently, I had just done the sitstart of "Le Moo Cow", which all in all, did feel like a soft 7A.
The exit in without the bigger holds on the left was quite a battle and I even cam close to giving up and had already started packing, until I decided to try the standing start for a while, hoping that the friction would get better on the high slopers. To my surprise, I was able to mantle into the slab again almost immediately, so I decided to stay and try from the sitstart again. It didn't go without a fight, but in the end I won the battle. The last part in the slab was a bit sketchy on slippery slopers, but I got there.
Fontainebleau - Franchard Basses Plaines - Le Marquis (assis) 7B
My body felt tired after the previous two days, but I was still eager to climb a little bit. There had been a dens fog during the night and early in the morning, and the conditions were not quite good, but I went to the far end of Coquibus Auvergne to try the new "King Auvergne" anyway. I had already walked passed that small boulder on the other hill next to "King Cobra" several times, but in the end it was Greg (aka 'Gard des Bois' on bleau.info) who actually saw and opened the first problem on it. Despite feeling tired and the boulder feeling damp due to the morning humidity, I managed to finish "King Auvergne" on my second attempt.
Fontainebleau - Coquibus Auvergne - King Auvergne 7A(7A+)
The weather forecast for the second half of this week looked great, and this didn't go unnoticed to Pieter. He had taken a couple of days off and had arrived in the forest on Wednesday night. Given the forecast, I had taken the afternoon off work yesterday to try "La Mandarine" in Roche aux Oiseaux, and Pieter was keen to join me. There had been a lot of fog in the morning though and the sun was blocked by clouds until late in the afternoon. It was freezing cold, but the conditions weren't as optimal that I had hoped for. Despite being able to do "La Mandarine" in two overlapping parts and despite the about thirty attempts from the start, I couldn't work my way up until the end. I finished the afternoon with frozen toes, a torn pants and sore muscles. It was fun nevertheless.
This morning, it was well below freezing, but there was no fog and the sun was out early. I was delighted that Pieter proposed to go Les Béorlots, as it could finally offer me a chance to try "I comme Irun". Ever since I saw a video of Daniel Olausson doing "I comme Irun" in 2013, I had been attracted by this beautiful, but high boulder. I had stood before it once, but as I had never dared trying it without a spotter, I never came to the point of actually trying it. Today, nine years later, I finally had the chance, but still having sore muscles from yesterday, I thought it would be only be trying the start and I walked towards the five meters high boulder without more expectation than that. The boulder was in a perfect spot, nicely in the sun and protected from wind and even though it was colder than yesterday, it didn't feel like it. My toes were never near to feeling frozen. It was only when I passed the far move to the bad sloper on the right and was able to move towards the next hold high up left hand, that I started getting hope to actually do it. We spent more than two hours there and I can't thank Pieter enough for spotting me and bearing with my persistence to finish the problem. It was five meters of pure joy when I passed the crux and mantled myself up on top.
Fontainebleau - Les Béorlots Ouest - I comme Irun 7C(7C+)
