August 28, 2022 - The devil's playground.

It doesn't happen a lot, but today Pieter came with a counter proposal to go Roche au Diable. Having never climbed there before, it was a proposal that I happily accepted. It turned out to be a fruitful session for both of us.
We warmed up with "Township".

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Township 7A

Followed by "Nuage de Pluie", that I flashed with relative ease. 

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Nuage de Pluie 7A

After many years of climbing together, Pieter has finally learned to use toehooks and seems to start being comfortable with it, to his advantage.

Pieter using his toes in "Nuage de Pluie".

There was some confusion about how "Bushman" was going through the roof, and after we finally figured it out, I topped it out on my second attempt, soon followed by Pieter, again using toehooks to his advantage.

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Bushman 7B

I had some fun starting in "Bushman" and traversing over to finish in "Capetown". Beautiful moves through that big roof.

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Capetown (départ gauche) 6C(6C+)

The huge boulder really is a bouldering playground and I ended the session doing "Township" again, but this time starting more to the left, adding a couple of moves to tighten the difficulty a bit.

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Township (départ gauche) 7A(7A+)

August 27, 2022 - Not so tip top but still a hit.

Even though I already went to Videlles les Roches several times, I had never visited the area of Videlles l'Abattoir right next to it. Pieter is in the forest again this weekend and looking forward to climbing in the shade of the dense trees, he was keen to join.
As usual when visiting a new area, I had lots of boulders that I wanted to see and try, which makes it difficult to focus on something specific. We tried several boulders, but I only got away with "Tip Top Hit", which I did on my second attempt while warming up.
I wanted to also get away with the beautiful "Cadeau pour un Pote", of which I did all the moves separately but as it was after several hours of climbing, couldn't find the energy anymore to link it all together. It's a boulder that I will go back for soon though, making it my main goal for the day.

Fontainebleau - Videlles l'Abattoir - Tip Top Hit 7A

Pieter doing one of the beautiful moves of "Tip Top Hit".

August 21, 2022 - Pulling Godzilla's tail.

I must admit that my body felt a bit sore when I got up this morning. I did feel like going for a short quick climb though and made my way to the "King" boulder in the small area now known as Boissy Roncevaux. My intention was to pull Godzilla's tail by going for "La Queue de Godzilla", one of many lines on that beautiful boulder.
I had a look at the start, checked out the line and made it on my first attempt. Beside "La Queue de Godzilla (prolongé)", which makes a loop and goes all around the boulder to exit above the starting point, I have now done all the known lines on the boulder, however, one can think of many more variations and games.

Fontainebleau - Boissy Norgevaux - La Queue de Godzilla 7A+

August 20, 2022 - Bringing a stick to a gun fight.

In May of this year, the Festival de l'Escalade de Bloc Durable took place in Milly-la-Forêt. For the occasion a (not so) new area was made available to the public, the area of Haute Pierre just outside the village. Some boulders were already opened there almost twenty years ago, but being a private hunting ground, it never became widely known to the public. Apparently when the land owner died, he left the land to the village of Milly-la-Forêt, and the mayor had allowed the creation of several circuits and the opening of lots of boulders. There is however, still an existing agreement with the hunters to keep on using the land as hunting ground, so parts of the area are forbidden for climbers and do not allow opening boulders within them. Therefor, a small path was constructed and all the boulders that are allowed to be climbed can be found along that path. It is thus advised to stay within proximity of the path and not to enter the forbidden zones. Arguing with a bunch of hunters is like bringing a stick to a gun fight. They have guns, climbers don't.
Thanks to the indications I received from Bart (Van Raaij), I found the path quickly and even more thanks to the topo that he made, I found the problems of interest without issues. All the problems that I wanted to do are part of the new black circuit, so all I had to do, was follow the path up and around the hill, and try what I passed on my way.

The first problem that I passed on my way was "Le Sept" (black 7). I flashed it on my warmup, but I must admit that it was with a bit of luck.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Le Sept 7A

Further up the hill along the path, I wanted to try "Charrière" (black 12). A quite hard dyno that makes the whole grade. It didn't take very long, but it definitely wasn't a give-away for me.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Charrière 7B

On the same boulder, on the right arete, I also got away with "Banco" (black 13). This one rather felt hard for the grade and might as well be 7A+ if you ask me. A very nice problem nevertheless.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Banco 7A

On the boulder just above, on the top of the hill, I made a quick ascent of "Bruyère Noire" (black 14). Sketchy first few moves followed by an easy topout. Even though I thought that I would flash it, it did require a handful of attempts just to get passed those few first moves.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Bruyère Noire 7A

On the backside of the boulder next to it, "Un Centime" (black 17) was sitting in the sun and despite it being quite hot there, I got away with it on my first attempt from the start after having worked out the last move, which s the crux of the problem.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Un Centime 7A

Because it's categorized as a traverse, I doubted to try "Deux Centimes" (sitstart in black 15 and finish in black 17), but decided to go for it anyway and made it my first attempt.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Deux Centimes 7A+

Following the path back down on the other side of the hill, I quickly found the sort of hidden roof of "Sous Quelle Pierre?" (black 24), worked out the moves separately and then finished it on my first attempt when coming from the start. I really enjoyed this one.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Sous Quelle Pierre? 7B

Of course still following the path, I continued my way to "Finale" (black 30) and flashed the lower starting "Finale (du bas)" with quite some ease. This rather felt like soft 7A+ at most.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Finale (du bas) 7B

I had hoped to still do "Equilibrium" (black 34), but my skin was starting to hurt and my body was complaining. When I then climbed until past the overhang and had the sun full on in my face for the hard mantle, I threw in the towel. This will have to be one to come back for some other time, as long as it's not during the hunting season.
It was a good session.

Thanks again to Bart (Van Raaij) for the indications and the very well drawn topo. It helped me to stay on a roll.
I heard that he will be releasing a new "5+6" topo in a few months, and afterwards there might come a new "7+8" as well. I can advise everyone to buy them, even if it are still the current versions. You will be supporting bleau.info with it as well.

August 17, 2022 - Boogie man.

We hadn't seen much of the forecasted rain the past few days, but when the clouds had gone going very grey by the time that I finished work today, I knew that I only had a short window of climbing. No time to call Bart (Van Raaij) and Markus (Neher) who are staying in a nearby gîte, so I went to the very nearby "La Ségognole" alone, with the intention to try "Homegrown Backyard Boogie".
Being so close to home, I of course had already tried a few times, but never found a good method to actually reach the slopers on the edge of the roof. After carefully analyzing the few possibilities, I finally found a way to get to the slopers, but it turned out that topping out with only bad slopers was certainly not a give-away. A few drops of rain had fallen in the meantime, but luckily not enough to make the boulder wet.
A couple of attempts later, trying only the topout, I also found a way there and went for another attempt from the start. It's a good thing that I only needed one, because barely ten minutes after I topped out, it started raining hard, very hard.
Not the nicest problem around, but definitely worth it when you have done almost everything else in the area.

Fontainebleau - La Ségognole - Homegrown Backyard Boogie 7B

August 14, 2022 - On guard.

It's been a while ago when I first noticed "Les Chiens de Garde (assis)" on bleau.info and I wanted to try it ever since, but the occasion to go to Rocher d'Avon never came. Until today, when I decided yesterday evening to make it my goal before the long awaited rain would start.
It was clouded when I left home, but before I arrived, the sun had come through and the previously mild temperature was starting to rise. The boulder is luckily covered in shade created by the dense foliage of the surrounding trees. While working out the moves though the air pressure started to build, which made me sweat heavily fast and made it harder to find good friction on the very bad slopers. The skin of my hands felt slick, but somehow I was able to stick the slopers long enough to pass the crux and topped out with joy.

Fontainebleau - Rocher d'Avon - Les Chiens de Garde (assis) 7B(7B+)

August 07, 2022 - Pieter as my witness.

I has been wanting to try "Pirouette Cacaouette" since 2013 when we filmed Daniel Olausson for Neil Hart's movie 'Out of Sight', but it was way out of my league back then. Considering the height of the boulder, I never came back to try it alone, but today Pieter agreed to go and try it.
We both had miserable sweaty hands, and were struggling with the first part at first, but after some time, the slopers got slightly better, but I couldn't do the dynamic move to the vertical crimp high up. The boulder being so high, it is not possible to work out that move separately, so everything had to be from the ground up and I hadn't bothered setting up the camera yet as the move to the vertical crimp had to feel possible first. After some time, I started as usual, but when I got to the point of doing the move to the vertical crimp, I suddenly did something that I hadn't seen anybody else do in any of the videos that I had watched. Instead of going to the vertical crimp dynamically, I first switched to a low undercling left hand and was able to place a heelhook where my left hand was earlier. This allowed to me take the high vertical crimp statically. When I had the crimp good and did the next move successfully, I knew that an easier part followed and for a fraction of a second I thought of jumping off to setup the camera first, but when Pieter encouraged me to climb on,  I did so and topped out this hidden gem.
I had mixed feelings, knowing that a video repeat immediately after topping out tends to be harder due to being less motivated or climbing with too much confidence, making tiny mistakes. Unfortunately this was also the case today and on top of that, the skin was feeling worse with every repeat attempt that followed, so eventually I had to throw in the towel for doing a video repeat. At least I have Pieter as my witness of successfully topping out.

Below a short video video of a few failed attempts trying to repeat it for the video.

August 06, 2022 - Like Caesar said.

"Rêve Errance" in Roche d'Hercule is one of those boulders that I could only dream of when I saw it for the first time about fifteen years ago. It looked impossible at that time, but when I tried it for the first time a few months ago, I was able to work out all of the moves, except for one. It was only yesterday evening though that I decided to go back, take two crashpads and make it my main goal.
It was a short burden to carry both crashpads up to the top of the hill, but it turned out to be well worth it. I quickly was able to work out the moves again, and found another method using a high right heelhook instead of the left for the crux move. Thinking it would be as good as over after the crux move, I hadn't tried the topout and fell out of it on my second attempt from the start. The third attempt, I paid more attention to my foot placement at the topout and with great relief made it to the top barely half an hour after arriving at the boulder.

Fontainebleau - Roche d'Hercule - Rêve Errance 7C(7C+)

Pieter had sent me a message in the meantime, and as he was in Fontainebleau, he decided to come over to say hi. While waiting, I move the crashpads under "Fenbren le Fou", which I was able to tick off as well before Pieter arrived.
Like Caesar said very long ago: 'Veni, vidi, vici'.

Fontainebleau - Roche d'Hercule - Fenbren le Fou 7B

August 03, 2022 - Off the rhythm.

I had some good friends visiting the last few days and the main focus was not on climbing. It was fun of course, but the first thing that I wanted to do today when they left, was to go out on my own into the forest. I was craving for solitude and a short climb. It was already well over 30°C, so it couldn't last long anyway. On top of that, I was so off my regular bio rhythm that I felt exhausted.
With "La Maison du Sanglier", it was something small, nice and nearby. It was a very hot climb, but luckily done quick enough before it got too extreme.

Fontainebleau - Bois Rond Le Moine - La Maison du Sanglier 7A+(7B)