March 27, 2022 - Seek and thou shall climb.

My hands were hurting and the skin on them was burning when I got up this morning, but with again a beautiful day ahead, I wanted to go out to forest and at least check out some boulders. While talking to Stéphan (Denys) a few days ago, he had reminded me of an isolated and well hidden boulder in the small and calm area of Oncy-sur-Ecole Sud, close to home. Almost ten years ago, when we just moved to here, I had been looking for that boulder with "Volt Face" and despite two visits, I didn't manage to find it. It was only during the last lockdown last year, when I was scouting that whole area, that I finally stumbled upon it. Being on the North side of the hill though, it was wet and it definitely needed to be rebrushed as well. Nature does what nature does, and the boulder was mostly covered with moss again.
Given the state of my hands, I wasn't entirely sure of being able to climb, but I decided to take some metal brushes and clean the boulder again. 
It was not even a year ago when I found the boulder, but this morning, I had to seek for quite a while to find it back despite knowing that it was really close from where I remembered that it was. That part of the forest is very dense with some small and some big mossy boulders everywhere. The boulder with "Volte Face" is so well hidden between other boulders that it can only be seen when standing a few meters from it. He who seeks shall find though, and that's exactly what happened.
I spent quite some time brushing the boulder again, and the cleaner it got, the more motivated I was to finally try it. Maybe it was the psyche or the adrenalin, but the burning skin and pain on my hands faded with every stroke of the brush.
When the boulder was clean again, I took my time to work out the moves and sooner than I had expected, topped the first variant, "Vire-Volt".

Fontainebleau - Oncy-sur-École Sud - Vire-Volt 7B+

With the motivation higher than ever, and the moral boosted, I regained energy quickly and climbed "Volt Face" soon after.

Fontainebleau - Oncy-sur-École Sud - Volt Face 7C

By that time, brushing included, several hours had gone by and as I was taking a break and almost getting ready to leave, I had a look deeper in the roof and took out the metal brush again. I had noticed some possible holds deep in the back of the roof and started cleaning them. 
After a few tries, it was clear that another variant was possible, starting deep under the roof on the left side. It took me almost another hour to work out the quite physical moves to get into the start of "Volt Face". It was a satisfying feeling to also climb this one out. 
Starting left deep under the roof with an undercling left hand near the end of the roof adds some very nice moves, but might be morpho for small climbers, or ones with shorter arms.

Fontainebleau - Oncy-sur-École Sud - Volt Face (du fond) 7C(7C+)

Another half or so was spent trying the same deep start and finishing in "Vire-Volt", but after falling off the last move a few times, I had to throw in the towel. The energy levels had become too low to continue. I'll go back for it some hot day in Summer, as it's an ideal Summer boulder.